Bone War

by Steven Harper

  “Is someone there?” That was Tan, nearby with her hoe.

  Danr froze, the plant still in his hand. He was a farmer, the son of a thrall. What business did he have mucking with the Garden?

  “It is I.” Aisa stood up from among the plants, holding a small sickle. “I am working.”

  Danr stared. What was she doing here? For that matter, what was he doing here? He tried to remember what he had last been doing, but nothing came to him.

  “That is good, sister,” said Nu.

  “That is helpful, sister,” said Tan.

  “That is true,” said Aisa.

  “Have you found the Bone Sword yet?” asked Nu. “Our vision is so clouded now we can barely see beyond our noses.”

  “Our hands,” added Tan.

  “Our feet,” said Aisa, “are carrying us to see Queen Vesha even now. But … something has happened to delay us. A bit. Though what it is, I cannot remember.”

  “Recall,” said Tan.

  “Recollect,” finished Nu. “You are mortal still, and the Garden plays tricks. And you are asleep, so this seems much like a dream.”

  “A vision,” added Tan.

  “A hallucination,” breathed Aisa.

  “Yes.” Nu shifted her bag, and several seeds fell from it, unheeded. Tiny plants sprouted at her feet, but half of them turned black and died. “In a dream, you know what you need to know and nothing more. We are so glad to see you, sister. But now it appears you will leave us.”

  “Leave?” said Aisa. “I do not understand. Why would I—”

  Icy water sloshed over Danr. He bolted awake with a gasp. Cold stones ground into his back. He tried to get to his feet but found he was chained to a wall by both wrists and ankles. A man in a dark cloak was standing over him with a bucket.

  “He’s awake, Abbess,” the man said.

  Danr shook his head, trying to clear it. The last thing he remembered was being in the Garden. No. The last thing he remembered was fighting monsters with—

  “Aisa!” he shouted, pulling at the heavy chains. “Where is she?”

  The man pointed. A few yards away stood a cage made of layers of heavy bars and wiry mesh. The bars were too heavy for any animal to bend and the mesh was too fine for any creature to slip through—a cage made for a shape-shifter. In a motionless heap in the center lay a naked Aisa. A few feet to Danr’s left, Kalessa was also clamped to the wall, though her chains weren’t as heavy. In front of her was a great bundle wound in canvas and tied down with ropes. It looked like a giant dumpling. The bundle trembled and shuddered but otherwise was clearly unable to go anywhere, and it took Danr a moment to realize that the thing was Slynd, wound up and tied down. Aisa, though, wasn’t moving.

  “If you’ve hurt Aisa,” Danr snarled at the man, “I’ll rip both your arms off and beat your skull in with them!”

  The man backed up a step but otherwise failed to respond. They seemed to be in a ring of great ash trees whose papery leaves reached upward for the silver moon that coasted far above them. Little ropes and chains hung from the trees, testament to the animal sacrifices made there, and small piles of fragrant ashes among the roots told of old prayers burned with incense. Cut grass within the ring formed a velvet carpet and threw up its springtime scent. The night air was chilly, and the full moon had climbed high into a starry sky. The monastery wall formed one side of the grove, and it was to this that Danr was chained.

  In the center of the grove sat a … thing. Danr could see it only now that the bucket man had moved out of the way. The thing was the size of a cart horse, and it had no shape. It seemed to be a messy, mottled blob of flesh. It had no eyes, no ears, no arms or legs. Just pale, blotchy skin and a few stray hairs. The thing quivered and made a squelching sound like someone stepping on moldy grapes. Danr’s stomach turned over, as if he had put his hand into a pile of dog manure.

  “What in Vik’s name is that?” he said.

  “Patience, child,” said a new voice. “It is the truth-teller’s duty to answer questions, not ask them.”

  The voice twisted a chill down Danr’s back. Vik’s balls, it wasn’t possible. From between the trees came a woman in a long dark cloak in a style similar to the bucket man’s, but hers was also sprinkled with silver stars and edged with brilliant white. Her braided dark hair, aging face, and soft figure made her look almost motherly, but Danr knew she was anything but. The woman was flanked by two other people in dark robes—other priests—and by a golem, scratched and battered but limping gamely along. Beside the woman padded the lion-eagle. Both its heads hissed at Danr until the woman put a hand on the eagle head. The creature stilled.

  “Sharlee Obsidia,” Danr spat. “So this is where you ended up.”

  “Crawling among the insects and the filth,” Kalessa growled. Last year, Sharlee Obsidia and her husband, Hector, had captured Kalessa and Ranadar, kept them chained up for days, used that leverage to force Danr and Aisa to bring the power of the shape back to Balsia and ultimately start a civil war. Danr knew damn well Kalessa loathed Sharlee and regretted the fact that she had escaped. Her feet lashed in Sharlee’s direction, though her hands remained shackled to the wall.

  “The lizard speaks with a forked tongue,” Sharlee said softly.

  “I will fork your tongue, coward,” Kalessa snarled.

  “Kalina and I forgive your impertinence,” Sharlee said. “You can’t help being what you are.”

  “I was found by Grick herself,” Kalessa said. “You would not find your own sphincter if not for the smell.”

  Sharlee’s face tightened, and she aimed a kick at Kalessa. Kalessa snapped out her own leg and trapped Sharlee’s ankle in the bend of her knee. She yanked, and Sharlee went down. The eagle-lion shrieked but seemed uncertain what to do. Kalessa managed to drag Sharlee closer with a dreadful inevitability before the monks grabbed Sharlee and pulled her free. They set her upright and tried to smooth her robe.

  “You’ll pay for that, you scaly bitch,” Sharlee snarled, brushing at the mud on her clothes.

  “Are you not required to forgive?” Kalessa said sweetly.

  Sharlee hardened like frozen venom. She put a hand on the eagle-lion’s head, and it looked up at her with strange golden eyes. After a moment, Sharlee turned her own eyes up to the moon, and the silver light played across her face and her expression cleared. “But of course, child. You were right to remind me. I forgive you. With all my heart.” She wet one finger with her pink tongue and drew a shiny circle on her forehead. “I beg the forgiveness of Lady Kalina, mistress of the moon. May Kalina shine evermore!”

  “May Kalina shine evermore!” chanted the other monks in unison. They drew forehead circles of their own.

  “She shines out your ass,” Kalessa said.

  “Blasphemer!” said one of the monks flanking Sharlee in horror. “The lady chose you for an honor, and you spit on—”

  Sharlee quieted him with a touch on his arm. “Kalina forgives all, Lif. We have only to ask.” She came around Kalessa, safely away from her kicking legs, and knelt next to her. “You must also ask for Kalina’s forgiveness, child.”

  “At your behest?” Kalessa snorted. “Never.”

  “Child.” Sharlee tutted. “The price of disobedience is high.”

  “I can afford it.”

  “Perhaps you can,” Sharlee said amiably, “but what about your wyrm?” She nodded at Lif, who drew a long knife and strode for the quivering canvas bundle of outrage that was Slynd. Before Kalessa or anyone else could say a word, Lif thrust the knife through the canvas. Danr cringed. A bellow of pain boomed from inside the canvas.

  “Slynd!” Kalessa struggled against the chains. “I will kill you! I will slice you in half and drain your blood!”

  “The child hasn’t learned her lesson,” Sharlee said. “She must earn her penance. May Kalina shine evermore!”

  Lif pulled the knife out and thrust it in again, deeper this time. Slynd hissed and bellowed, but he couldn’t get away from the knife
or the pain.

  “May Kalina shine evermore!” repeated the other monks.

  “Stop it!” Danr cried. “You’re hurting him!”

  Kalessa’s face had lost all color. “All right. It is as you say. I … I beg Lady Kalina’s forgiveness.”

  “For?” Sharlee prompted, and Lif raised the knife again. Thick blood ran down the blade.

  “For …” Kalessa was breathing hard, and she swallowed. Every word was wrung from her. “For wronging you. For committing blasphemy.”

  “And?”

  “And?” Kalessa repeated, confused.

  Lif thrust the knife back into the second wound and twisted it. Slynd made a hissing scream that raised the hair on Danr’s neck and twisted his guts. It went on and on until Lif pulled the knife back out.

  “Vik! What do you want?” Kalessa cried.

  Sharlee leaned in close, and Danr barely heard her. “Ask forgiveness for being born a crawling wyrm not fit to lick the moon lady’s feet.”

  Rage flared in Kalessa’s eyes. “You …” Lif raised the knife again, and Kalessa bit her lower lip until it bled. Danr silently pleaded with her to go along with it. They were only words, empty ones. But to Kalessa, an orc who would be remembered for her words and her deeds, every syllable was blood. Kalessa panted hard with fury, but finally, with aching slowness, she said, “I ask the lady’s forgiveness for my birth.”

  Sharlee’s smile was both triumphant and beatific. She spat on Kalessa’s forehead and drew a circle with the spittle. “You are forgiven, child. May Kalina shine forevermore.”

  “May Kalina shine forevermore!”

  “And more than that,” Sharlee continued, “I must thank you. All of you.”

  “For what?” Danr asked with a wary eye on Lif.

  “If you hadn’t tried to kill my sweet husband, none of this would have happened.” Sharlee gestured at the monastery and the grove and the eagle-lion. “I would not have found the blessings of Kalina and I would not have been chosen as the abbess. Kalina’s will would go undone.” She pressed her palms together above the eagle-lion’s head. It slitted its eyes. “We are all nothing but tools in her blessed hands.”

  “Your mouth makes words that your heart does not believe,” Kalessa said.

  “If I did not believe,” Sharlee said, “Kalina would not have blessed me with her power. Or my sweet husband. Or the brothers and sisters of her monastery.”

  Lif raised his knife over Slynd again. Danr thought about changing his own shape, using his smaller human form to slip the bonds so he could go for Lif or even Sharlee, but Danr was badly outnumbered and he was bound to lose. Instead he spoke up. “Why do you talk about Hector as if he were alive, Sharlee? We watched him turn into a piece of slime and die.”

  At Sharlee’s gesture, Lif strode over and gave Danr a good sideways kick in the stomach. The air burst out of him, and hot pain exploded across his belly. At least Lif wasn’t stabbing Slynd. “You will address her as Abbess, half-blood bastard.”

  “We must not lay blame, Lif,” Sharlee said mildly. “He can’t help that his mother was a troll’s whore. Though perhaps this one should also ask forgiveness. He’ll probably need persuading, too.”

  “Stop it!” Aisa pushed herself groggily upright within her cage. “Do not … touch him, you piece … of filth!”

  Sharlee turned. “Not your best insult, child. It shows a rotting intellect.”

  “The poison … makes it a challenge,” she said, and a troll’s rage built in Danr at the weakness in her voice. It burned the pain away. He pulled at the shackles, but they were too solid, even for him.

  Aisa managed to turn herself all the way to face Sharlee. “You cannot … cage a shape mage … woman.”

  “That is the cage of humility and pride, child,” said Sharlee. “We use it for novices who are coming into their power. The mesh is too fine for even the most humble shape you might take, and the bars are so heavy that you’ll crush yourself if you take a proud one.”

  “I am the … first shape mage,” Aisa panted. “Mere … poison and iron bars … will not contain me.” She flowed into a wolf shape and back into a human shape, forcing the last of the poison’s weakness from her voice and body. Danr gave a private sigh of relief. Changing shape always healed a shape mage, though no one knew exactly why. Danr privately suspected it was because the body naturally changed into its original, unwounded shape. The difficulty lay in having enough power to change shape when your energy reserves were already low from being wounded.

  “Always full of pride, aren’t you, child?” Sharlee said. “Not that I’ll underestimate you again. You nearly destroyed me last time. Me and Hector.”

  Danr worked his jaw. He had the feeling it wouldn’t do any good, but he had to say it. “We didn’t kill your husband, Shar—Abbess. You forced me and Aisa to hunt down the power of the shape and bring it back to you. He died because of that, not because of us.”

  For a moment, his mind flickered back to that dreadful day, when he and Aisa and Talfi had met Grandfather Wyrm at the bottom of the ocean. Grandfather Wyrm, the most powerful shape mage the world had ever known and the only person besides Talfi to survive the Sundering. He had done so by changing from a human into a wyrm and over the centuries had grown massive—and forgetful. He had forgotten what it was like to be human. But in the end, he had given both Aisa and Danr some of his blood. It woke a tiny amount of shape magic in Danr, and rushed a tidal wave of it through Aisa. Anyone who ingested their blood and who also possessed the Kin’s dormant shape magic would experience the same thing. Except for some people, the experience turned deadly. Some people lost all control of their bodies and died in a dreadful jumble of shapes. Hector and Sharlee Obsidia had both taken Danr’s blood. Danr still shuddered at the memory of Hector falling to the ground, wrenching around and pissing himself, extruding wretched limbs and even wings, until he died.

  “I know, child,” Sharlee said. “You didn’t kill him.”

  “Really?” Danr blinked in surprise. His troll’s eyes saw perfectly well in the bright moonlight, and her face was the picture of calm. He shut his right eye and gazed at her with only his left. To his further astonishment, she changed very little. The darkness he had expected to see simply wasn’t there.

  “Ah. The truth-teller gazes at me with his true eye. Look all you like, child.” She approached and leaned down to pat his cheek while the eagle-lion watched. The blob thing shuddered with a squishy noise. “Troll magic is nothing to the eye of Kalina herself.”

  “Nothing can keep out the truth, Sharlee,” Danr said. “You’ve just … changed.”

  “The woman has not changed,” Kalessa snapped, regaining more of herself now that Lif wasn’t waving the knife at Slynd anymore. “She has only donned a set of robes. You can coat wyrm shit with sugar, and it will still be wyrm shit.”

  Sharlee’s face flushed, but she made an obvious effort to keep control and turned back to Danr. “Do you know what has happened to me in the last year and a half you gave Hector your blood and twisted his body through pain and terror, child?”

  “I don’t know,” Danr was forced to say. “And Hector took my blood. I didn’t give it to him.”

  Sharlee ignored him. “I lost everything. You and your friends smashed all my golems but this one and destroyed my fortune. I fled north and ended up at this monastery, half-starved and dying of exposure. The good brothers and sisters of Kalina the Moon Woman took me in. They taught me simplicity and balance, child, and when I discovered that your blood had given me the power of the shape after all, they became convinced I had been blessed by Kalina herself.”

  “You learned you can change the shape of other things,” Danr said, trying to keep her talking until he could figure out what to do.

  “Other living things,” Sharlee agreed in a cold, amiable voice. “The lady lets me melt flesh like beeswax, mold it and shape it into anything I like.” The tip of her tongue glided over her upper lip, and her voice lowered to a hiss.
“It’s why they made me abbess. Would you like a demonstration?”

  She reached for Danr’s chest, her hands glowing with faint golden light. Horrified, Danr tried to back away, but there was nowhere to back to.

  “Do not touch him!” Aisa shouted.

  “The lady commands it, child,” Sharlee whispered. A small line of saliva slid from the corner of her mouth and she touched Danr with her glowing hands. More pain ripped through him, squeezed his heart with a red-hot fist. He kicked and squirmed, but he couldn’t get away from the awful pain. Danr was aware that Aisa was screaming and rattling at the bars of her cage, but the searing pain was too powerful for him to do more than writhe and gasp.

  “Abbess,” Lif interrupted. “The ceremony? Our lady moon is nearly at her height.”

  Sharlee glanced up. The moon was almost directly above them. She pulled her hands back, and the pain ended with an abruptness that left Danr dizzy. He sat shuddering in the chains.

  “Thank you, Lif,” Sharlee said. “We must begin. May Kalina forgive my slight.”

  “Kalina forgives all,” the others said, all together.

  Danr panted in his shackles. His insides felt like scrambled eggs. Had she done anything permanent to him or had she just wanted to hurt him? Vik! What now? The blobby thing in the center of the ring shuddered again, and some kind of sharp-smelling goo oozed down the sides.

  Drums beat like a dozen hearts. Other robed men and women and even a few children were filing into the grove now and taking places among the ash trees. They carried a number of sharp weapons—knives and swords and sickles—and they gleamed soft silver in the moonlight. The eagle-lion settled on its haunches.

  “What ceremony?” Danr tried to demand, but it came out more as a hoarse grunt. “What is this about?”

  Sharlee was shrugging into a silvery outer cloak that another monk was draping over her robe. Dark, heavy runes skated around the edge.

  “This isn’t a story, child,” Sharlee said. “I’m not going to recite a poem or chant a little song that tells you what my plans are. You’ll just have to find out.”

  Danr shut his right eye again and stared at her again, more carefully this time. He saw the power of the shape coiled within her like a blacksnake ready to strike. It was different from his own power, and from Aisa’s. In her, the shape magic was a poison. Something drew his eye aside, and he saw the same poison within the eagle-lion. Sharlee had created the eagle-lion. Well, he knew that. But when he looked a little closer, he saw the faint outline of … a person. His stomach tightened. The eagle-lion wasn’t several animals crushed together as Danr had assumed. It was a human being, altered so totally it was unrecognizable. Vik! Had the other creatures also once been people?