Idol of Bone

by Jane Kindred

  The guard nodded, under the spell of the alluring Maiden Sky, and stared after her with frank appreciation as she moved demurely over the petal-strewn walk to join Cree. Cree offered her arm, and Ume took it with a gentle inclination of her head. It was as if the years since the Expurgation had been swept away and they were who’d they once been: a temple courtesan and her patron strolling in the Garden.

  They walked quietly through the square and, at Ume’s subtle direction, to the pub at the edge of the Garden, The Salver & Chalice, where Ume had once done much of her business negotiations. Most of its patrons were in the square, jostling to see what had happened, and Ume and Cree slipped unnoticed into Ume’s old booth in the back. As though not a day had passed, the publican nodded to Ume and closed her curtain.

  Cree clutched her hand across the table. “Meeralyá, Ume,” she swore under her breath, though such an oath was more dangerous here than anywhere else. “Thank truth you’re all right. What happened?”

  Ume was still weeping, which seemed peculiar if Nesre were really dead. “I almost freed the child,” she said, her voice tremulous with emotion. “I stole Nesre’s key in the night while he was sleeping.” Cree swallowed, not wanting to think of what might have happened before he’d slept. “I almost had the child, but he caught me. And now—” Ume choked back a sob. “And now the child is dead.”

  “Oh, Ume’la.” Cree leaned over the table and stroked Ume’s cheek through the veil. “It’s not your fault. You tried.”

  Ume broke down, and Cree came around the table to sit beside her and hold her while she sobbed. “I saw him,” Ume gasped when her crying slowed and she tried to catch her breath. “I think it was a boy, anyway. He was beautiful. Cree, he was Alya’s.” Ume sat up, wiping at her eyes. “Nesre used Alya’s seed to make him.”

  Cree’s insides all seemed to be squeezed into a painfully tight ball at once, her gut seized with a dizzying nausea and her heart beating against her rib cage as if it were being strangled. “Alya’s seed?”

  “Yes.” Ume sniffled, using a corner of the veil to dab at her eyes. “The bastard—cut pieces—off the Meer and saved them.” She shuddered. “He preserved the seed and used it to impregnate some poor girl.”

  Cree had begun to shake, unable to control it as a terrible understanding swept over her.

  “Cree?” Ume paused in wiping at her tears, her warm amber eyes alarmed. “What is it? Are you all right?”

  Cree gripped the edge of the table to try to steady herself. “I—Ume, I never told you—I didn’t want you to—I just thought it was best if you didn’t—ai, meeralyá.”

  “You’re scaring me. I don’t understand. Cree!” Ume grabbed both of her arms.

  Cree closed her eyes. “The baby,” she whispered. “The baby wasn’t yours.”

  Pearl waited on the stool where Shiva left him, leery of her, but obedient. His eyes lit up when he saw she’d returned with Ra. Shiva grudgingly conjured hot water and a porcelain tub for a bath and let Ra fuss over him.

  The boy clung to Ra as she persuaded him to get into the water, as if he’d never had a bath. From the looks of him, perhaps he hadn’t. Shiva frowned when Ra convinced him to remove the dirty shift and revealed his mutilated body. There were scars as well upon his back, well faded as if they’d been inflicted many years past, though the boy had seen less than a dozen. Breaking the prelate’s neck had been too kind.

  But Pearl’s impossible existence was infuriating. “I don’t understand how he could have been born without my knowing it.” Shiva shook her head. “You say he’s lived these years in the temple, and yet I felt nothing.”

  “I think it was the cage,” said Ra. “It was made of some peculiar mirrored glass that kept the flow of Meeric energy within. I was unable to project my will outside of it.”

  “Mirrors.” She let out a harsh laugh but didn’t explain. “And he shattered it from here.” Shiva appraised him. She found children unpleasant, and male children particularly so, but she couldn’t deny the Meeric blood was strong in him and manifested in ways she couldn’t remember having seen before. Shiva sighed. At least he was quiet.

  As he relaxed finally into the steaming tub, Ra unbraided the boy’s hair and washed it until it shone. When it was clean, it was an impressive pearlescent shade of platinum and hung nearly to his knees. He was MeerAlya’s child; there was no mistaking it. Ra dressed him in a traditional kaftan, using Alya’s shades of silver and gold embroidered in an exquisite blue topaz silk, until Shiva pointed out the impracticality of traveling with a child who looked so obviously Meeric.

  “Traveling?” Ra looked surprised at the idea.

  “Surely you didn’t think I was going to keep him here.” Shiva didn’t know whether to laugh or strike her.

  Ra shook her head, pondering. “No. I mean, yes, I had before, but of course not now. Of course. Forgive me MeerShiva.” Ra re-clothed him in a simple flax tunic and pants, and Shiva wrapped the kaftan in paper to keep for him for later. No use letting good conjuring go to waste.

  “I suppose he could come with me to Haethfalt,” Ra mused as she braided his hair.

  “Haethfalt?” Shiva grimaced with distaste. “Whatever for?”

  Ra smiled. “I like the weather.”

  Jak had refused to leave. Though it hadn’t yet broken into the temple, chaos reigned in the square. Temple Ra had been built among the people, its broad steps inviting the public before their Meer in the center of its commerce. Only the fear of Ra, and the Temple Guard, four ranks deep, had stayed them until now.

  Jak and Ahr fought nearly as heatedly as the crowd outside until Jak let him think he’d won. Promising to leave with Geffn under cover of the escort, Jak stormed off to gather the bags assembled for the trip with Ra.

  When Ahr headed off into the temple, Jak dropped the gear. “If you want to go, Geffn, I understand. But I’m not leaving without Ra, and I don’t feel right leaving Ahr and Merit to face this on their own. Ahr’s a stubborn fool.”

  Geffn smirked. “Oh, Ahr’s a stubborn fool.”

  “Shut up, Geff. I mean it. If you want to go—”

  “And what am I supposed to be doing? Hiking all the way back to Haethfalt on my own? No, I’m staying with you. I don’t know what in sooth we’re going to do, but here we are.”

  Jak gave him a little smile, surprised after how willingly he’d abandoned them when they’d been detained. “So, who’s a stubborn fool?”

  Ahr returned to the atrium buckling on a cuirass, and paused when he saw Jak. “What are you still doing here?”

  “Never mind me, what are you doing?”

  “I’m joining the Guard—temporarily. There aren’t enough men out there to keep these madmen out.” He turned a sword belt at his hip toward the front.

  “You’re going out there with a sword? Do you even know how to use one?”

  “It’s more of a dagger. For thrusting. I think I know how to thrust.” Ahr reddened as Jak raised an eyebrow. “Time’s wasting, Jak. You need to get going.”

  “As you said, Ahr, there aren’t enough men. Sending two to escort Geffn and me out of the city doesn’t seem very smart.”

  “Ai, meerrá!” Ahr threw his hands in the air in defeat. “Fine, Jak. I’m done arguing with you.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” said Geffn. “That’s what everyone says eventually.”

  By nightfall, it was no longer a riot but a battle, the standoff between the Temple Guard under Merit’s command and those who’d joined the cause of the dissenters disintegrating into organized chaos. Casualties began to accrue on both sides, and each citizen that went down before the pressing crowd prompted more shouts of anger against Merit.

  Once again, coordinated calls for him to relinquish authority began, and a seemingly spontaneous spokesman emerged, leaping onto the pedestal of a nearby column. “We are without rule!” the man cried. “Le
t us establish Prelate Nesre of In’La as the protector of Rhyman!”

  The loudest voices echoed this cry, sending Nesre’s name throughout the crowd until they were shouting it back as if they’d invented the idea themselves. There was no mistaking it; this was a planned coup. And like the templars before them, the solicitors of both soths were in league with one another, feeding the anger of the people in order to get them to do the bulk of the dirty work for them.

  Ahr stood on the step before Merit, his dagger in front of him, shoulder to shoulder with the men of the Guard. The throng swelled and receded in a rhythm like a tide—and it seemed to be heading toward high. He was beginning to doubt his conviction that this was where he ought to be. What if he simply got in the way? It was true he’d never held a sword; he’d never held a dagger either. He was also beginning to doubt whether Merit should make this stand. Whether by the solicitors’ machinations or not, the people were against him.

  “Nesre! Nesre! Nes-RE!”

  The chant began in the front and worked its way toward the back. Ahr stole a glance behind him at Merit. He’d never seen such a look of fierce determination in his eyes. Ra had bidden him to rule Rhyman, and he meant to do it.

  “What do Rhymani want with the prelate of In’La?” Merit shouted. “Are we to be subjugated by a lesser soth? In’La has coveted the jewel that is Rhyman for centuries!”

  A murmur of dissent ran through the crowd, and Ahr saw the disguised solicitors making their move. They couldn’t afford to let the crowd be swayed.

  “Out with the Meerist!” The cry rang out, and the carefully planted agents of the coup surged the crowd ahead of them forward, until they poured onto the steps once more in a frenzy.

  Ahr had never killed anyone before, at least not with his own hand, but when a man came toward him with a knife and eyes full of rage, he thrust the dagger. It was surprisingly easy.

  No longer defending Merit or the temple, or even his fellow Guardsmen, but his single spot upon the steps, he forgot anyone else was around him. They came, and he thrust, grappling with them when they didn’t die as easily as the first, but no longer thinking of anything but defending his spot. It was his, and no one would pass. He was so intent on this singular defense that he didn’t notice what was going on behind him.

  The rioters had broken into the atrium. No more interested in fighting than fleeing, Jak had compromised with Ahr and retreated to the upstairs bedroom where the window overlooked the main courtyard, and stayed out of the way. When the mob surged, Jak knew it would only be a matter of time. The sounds of the conflict soon burst into the temple’s interior instead of coming only from without. Like it or not, the fight had come to Jak.

  Geffn came out of his room as Jak ran for the stairs. “Jak, wait! What are you going to do?”

  “Something, Geff. Anything. I don’t relish being flung from the windows as Meerist sympathizers.” Jak didn’t wait to see what Geffn was going to do about it. Servants and guards were defending the atrium, and Jak grabbed up the first thing that could be used as a weapon, swinging a heavy, three-tiered candlestick at a bearded man heading for the stairs. It connected with his head, and he hit the ground, looking as surprised as Jak felt.

  Jak continued to defend the arch between the atrium and the stairs whenever someone got through the Guard’s defenses. Just why they were trying for the stairs, Jak had no idea. Probably to loot. But none of them were going to get past Jak. Thinking about it later, Jak concluded that perhaps it hadn’t been the most strategic defense, but it felt good to do something after days of tension. Most of the marauders were unarmed—which was probably how they’d gotten through, not deemed an immediate threat while the others fought off the more dangerous attackers—and against those who were, Jak used the candlestick as a blocking baton.

  From this vantage point, Jak could see Merit’s sword flashing in the torchlight as he deflected the blows from his opponent, but Ahr was nowhere to be seen. Merit took a glancing blow to his sword arm, and his opponent began to get the upper hand. The cloaked swordsman drew him farther into the crowd and Jak could see Merit’s mistake only through the advantage of distance. Several others closed in behind him.

  “UtMerit!” Jak shouted in the Rhymanic tongue, but he was too far away.

  At last, Jak saw Ahr. He sprang from the lower steps toward Merit as one of the swordsmen went in for the kill, knocking the man off his feet. They both went down, and Jak screamed Ahr’s name as another sword plunged down toward him. When the sword sank home, Jak could see nothing more, but Ahr had bought Merit time to realize his mistake. Recovering his position, Merit swung his sword and cleared out the men around him.

  One of the looters took the opportunity to dive past, and Jak turned back and chased him up the few steps he’d breached. Geffn met the man coming down, striking him on the side of the head with an iron poker and knocking him over the balustrade.

  “Geff,” gasped Jak. “Ahr—I have to—”

  “Go,” said Geffn gruffly, obviously as stunned to have struck a man senseless as Jak had been. “I’ve got this.”

  Jak turned and raced toward the temple steps.

  Ahr wrested his dagger from the breast of the man he’d taken down, rolling to dodge another jab from the sword that had momentarily pinned him. He cursed himself for not buckling the cuirass tighter. The sword had managed to penetrate between the straps on his left side, nicking a rib. He tried to get out of the tangle of bodies to defend himself, but dodging and disentangling were difficult to do simultaneously.

  His assailant jabbed again, and Ahr scrambled back, but his boot was trapped under the fallen man’s leg. He blocked with his arm, hoping the sword wouldn’t take it off, but as the thrust came, the swordsman faltered and stumbled, tumbling down the steps beside him.

  Ahr looked up to see Jak standing over him, pupils dilated widely in the steel eyes, holding a brass candelabrum.

  “Behind you,” he said, and Jak turned and struck another attacker square in the face with it. Jak reached down and pulled Ahr to his feet, and the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, fending off further assaults from Merit’s flank.

  Ahr glanced at Jak’s weapon. “Did you just knock a man unconscious with a candelabrum?”

  Jak grunted, shoving an oncoming fighter back with the base of the candlestick and ramming it into his chest. “Yes.”

  Ahr grinned. “I am so attracted to you right now.”

  Merit had knocked his opponent’s sword out of his hand, and he jumped out of the melee onto the wall at the side of the steps, dragging the man with him. “Hear me, Rhymani!” he bellowed. “This man is a solicitor of our court! He is here in disguise because he is in collusion with the court of In’La to seize control of our soth!”

  Angry murmuring rippled out from the ones close enough to hear him.

  “You ask why I alone am left in the Court of Rhyman? It is because the solicitors of Rhyman have conspired against their own citizens! They are traitors to Rhyman!” He thrust the solicitor in front of him. “Do you deny it, Solicitor Zaharas?”

  Zaharas shouted in defiance. “Rhyman is better off under the protection of the prelate of In’La than in the hands of a Meerist!”

  “Wrong answer,” said Merit, and tossed him into the crowd to let them deal with him. It might have been kinder to run him through.

  In the ensuing uproar, it seemed for the first time the tide was turning in Merit’s favor, but many were still shouting Nesre’s name. The physical conflict had abated for the moment, and Ahr looked out across the square toward the river, confused by the pinkish sheen on the water until he realized it was the glow of dawn. As he watched the activity on the dock, a runner came from one of the In’Lan steamboats. The boy made his way to the square, shoving through the angry crowd. He was certainly earning his coin.

  “Message for Lord Minister Merit of Rhyman!” he cried amid the
shouting. Gradually, the crowd parted and allowed him through. “Lord Minister Merit?” he said as he came closer, his eyes searching the men on the steps.

  Merit waved him over. “I’m the Lord Minister. What is your message, boy?”

  The runner handed him a rolled-up piece of parchment, and Merit gave him his coins before untying the string and unrolling it. The crowd grew hushed as he read to himself.

  Merit looked up. “There has been a tragic fire at the Court of In’La,” he announced. “Prelate Nesre perished in the flame.”

  For a moment, shocked stillness followed, people looking about at the others around them as if wondering what to do, and then someone broke the silence. “How do we know this message came from In’La? The Minister could have staged this!”

  “It bears the seal of the secondary officer of the court,” said Merit, and he passed it forward to those closest to him to verify it.

  They passed the word on through the crowd, and the murmuring began again, but it was a confused jumble as people talked amongst themselves.

  Merit rapped the point of his sword against the marble with a loud clang. “Is there anyone here willing to continue to press for Soth In’La’s protection?” He waited in the silence. “Because if someone does, I suggest the people put it to a vote.” Merit cleaned his sword on his coat and sheathed it. “Go home and go to bed. There has been enough violence here tonight.”

  A few isolated pockets of protestors took up the shout again, trying to rile their neighbors, but the crowd began to thin, and in a moment, it was clear their cause was lost.

  Jak looked at Ahr as people began to clear out. “What just happened? What was the message?”

  “The prelate of In’La is dead. Temple Alya burned.” Neither of them spoke of what this might mean for Ra. “You shouldn’t have come out here without armor,” he complained as he and Jak headed up the steps.

  Jak looked at the gash in Ahr’s side as he unbuckled the cuirass. “Yes, I see it worked out so well for you.” Ahr winced as Jak stopped inside the atrium to pull up his shirt and examine the wound. After a moment, Jak’s mouth lifted in a crooked smile, though Jak didn’t look up at him. “So you liked my weapon.”