by Graeme Ing
We had dinner in Kolta’s room and spent a wonderful evening reminiscing about the old days. I almost managed to forget my problems. Almost, but not entirely.
We left the Guild in the quiet dark of the early morning hours, he by the stairs and me via the treacherous, icy roof. Having slid down the last section of wall and bashed my knee on a sewer grate, I was glad to be in one piece when we met in an adjacent street. Our breath steamed in front of our faces and we pulled our robes tight. With no carriage in sight, we walked in silence through the gloomy streets washed with a harbor fog. Mercifully, it didn’t rain.
“I’ve never seen you so bloody skittish,” Kolta said, obviously noting my constant glances behind us.
“Half the city seems to be following me lately.”
He chuckled. “You don’t seem your usual cocky self.”
I snorted. “People keep trying to kill me. Forgive the dent in my confidence.”
He extended his arms in a peace offering.
“I’m not criticizing, just observing. I always liked your bravado. It made my lessons more…interesting.” A grin filled his face. “Watching you go toe to toe with Semplis was priceless.”
“Master Semplis is a stuck-up geriatric.”
Kolta laughed again, an alien sound in the quiet night. “I miss those days. I miss you in my class.”
We continued across the city deep in our own thoughts. We arrived at the crumbling wall surrounding Caradan’s Tower just as the sky had turned a pale green, ahead of the dawn. No one else walked the gloomy alleys behind Temple Plaza. Two dogs barked in the distance. I blew on my frozen hands, and then led the way through the hole in the wall and into Caradan’s domain.
Thick fog shrouded the meadow, threatening to gobble us up. Silhouettes of trees loomed like deformed giants. I didn’t want to advertise our movements with a light source, so I insisted that we crept among the rocks and potholes, stifling our gasps as we stubbed our toes. All manner of creatures lurked in the shadows, pinging and rippling my Perception.
Upon reaching the necropolis, we hunkered down behind a large gravestone. The tower was barely visible in the gloom. Kolta nudged me, gesturing toward it. His eyes and teeth appeared bright in the near darkness.
“You’re right,” he whispered. “I sense a dozen sentinels in there.”
Of course I was right.
“Walk the Bones will get us in.” He looked around. “We’ll need two skeletons.”
“Where am I supposed to get them from?”
He patted the grass of the grave we knelt on. “Dig.”
“You’re kidding.”
“This is your plan. I can’t help it if you forgot the shovels.” He jabbed his finger up one nostril and started his own form of digging.
Kristach. I yanked at clumps of grass and scooped up dirt with both hands. It was wet and muddy, and before long I was caked in it up to my elbows. Worms and spiders crawled all over me. I imagined myself a ghoul, hungrily tearing at the earth to reach a corpse. Crypts were much more civilized.
Kolta snorted. His hand flew to his mouth, but he giggled like a girl.
“What?” I stopped and flicked a wad of mud at him.
“Maldren, Maldren.” His whole body quivered. “I’m sorry, it’s painful to watch. My sides are going to burst.”
He wrapped his hands about his belly and took a deep breath. I scowled at him.
“I have to commend your dedication,” he said. “But you have so much to learn.”
I clenched my teeth and sat back on my heels. “What? Then teach me.”
Red wisps of magic snaked from his hands and into the small trench I had dug. The earth shook and squirmed. Beetles scurried away. The tip of a bone broke the surface. It kept rising, and then others poked up around it. As fast as I plucked them from the loose soil, others pushed up in their place. That was a spell I needed to learn. Eventually two piles of bones sat heaped in front of us. Why are there so many damn tiny bones in the human body?
“Ready for this?” Kolta whispered. “Last-minute regrets?”
I rolled my eyes. “Get on with it.”
“We need to get this done fast, before ghouls come sniffing.”
I peered into the darkness. There was nothing to see, but I could sense them at the distant edge of my Perception.
My flesh tingled at the touch of his spell. Every hair on my skin jerked erect and my nerves jangled. I lost all my senses simultaneously. I wanted to cry out but couldn’t. With no sensory input, I hung in a limbo of nothingness. Something had gone wrong.
When my vision returned, a gargantuan spider stood before me, its furry legs twitching, ready to trample me. Kristach. I wanted to flee but nothing happened—I had no feeling in my limbs. I tried to shake my head but it wouldn’t move. A woozy feeling of light-headedness persisted, as well as the unnerving sensation that I wasn’t whole. My mind reeled.
Kolta had paralyzed me!
My perspective shifted. I rose into the air and the alien world began to make sense. What I’d thought were boulders resolved to mere clods of dirt. The spider shrank to normal size. My viewpoint had been a mere inch above the ground. I had no idea what was lifting me, but at least now I could turn my head. Below me, my body lay crumpled on top of the grave.
I saw the tombstone, trees, and the far-off wall, clear as day even in the darkness. My eyesight was different somehow, tinged pink. The feeling in my limbs returned, but they remained stiff, inflexible.
Kolta stepped into view and waved. My upward movement had stopped and he faced me at normal eye level. My own hand was light but rigid when I lifted it. A skeletal hand appeared before my face, finger bones joined with nothing but air. Slowly, I wiggled the fingers.
Lak and all his demons!
Kolta faked alarm. “Oh, no, a skeleton.”
“Funny,” I tried to say, but no words came out. I moved to hit him but he easily dodged my sluggish slap.
That wasn’t fair. I could hear but not speak? And no ninja skeleton abilities?
Kolta winked, then his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed to the ground. What? At the sound of clacking bones, I stepped aside and watched the second pile of bones reassemble themselves, jostling and jumping over one another to connect to the right neighbor. The skull rose to sit atop them, and he faced me, grinning inanely, red glows filling his eye sockets. I hoped I had demonic eyes too.
I glanced down at my ribs and pelvis. Why hadn’t he warned me this would happen? I thought we were going to control the skeletons, not become them. Our real bodies were hidden from the tower by the gravestone. We looked asleep. Lying on the wet grass would play havoc with my back. I hadn’t seen any animals inside the wall, but I was more worried about the ghouls. I’d hate to come back and find they had gnawed on me. I attempted to bite my lip, but only succeeded in clacking my teeth together.
I jerked my head in the direction of the tower, but the gesture turned into a slow, sideways motion of my skull that caught me off guard, and I fell against the tombstone. Careful, Maldren. These are brittle bones. You’ll break yourself. My whole body felt wooden. It was like learning to walk all over again.
We shuffled side by side along the path and through the swamp, and I rapidly got the hang of being a skeleton. This would work great. Now where were those skeletons lurking inside the tower? I reached for my magic to cast Perception. No power coursed through my veins. Kristach, I didn’t even have any.
I faltered. There was energy inside me, but it seemed distant, diffuse, and unapproachable. I turned to go back. Powerless, it made no sense to proceed.
Kolta grabbed my humerus. I searched his grinning face but there was nothing there to read. I tapped my ribs. Do you understand, Master?
He nodded and pointed back toward our bodies, and then he rapped his own ribs with his fist and pointed again.
Oh, that’s how it works. My Perception was active, I could sense it, but centered on my real body. Unfortunate, but at least we’d know if som
ething approached them.
My hand had gotten stuck in my rib cage. I glared at my misbehaving body. Lak, are you playing jokes now? Not funny. I worked my hand free but my middle finger snapped off and fell to the ground. Stupid, rebellious digit. Kolta clacked his teeth repeatedly. Was he laughing at me? He snapped off one of his own fingers, threw it into the swamp, and made a thumbs-up gesture.
We splashed onward through the swamp, not even bothering to jump between the islets, until we reached the base of the tower. With my new night vision it was easy to see the pair of skeletons inside the open balcony door. Their red, unblinking eyes glared back. Without hesitation, I climbed the plank, Kolta right behind me.
I pushed between the skeleton guards, careful to keep my limbs from entangling in theirs, and continued into a hallway. I heard them turn to track me. A second pair stepped aside to let us through. Yes, I belong here, I’m a skellie too.
This was such a smart plan of mine.
The inner hallway bisected the center of the tower. At either end, adjacent to the outer walls, narrow stairways led to other floors, up to my left and down to my right. A heavy wooden door stood open on the opposite side of the hallway.
Something whispered in the air. I turned, but we were alone. I hoped that we hadn’t awoken Caradan’s ghost. It felt wrong to trespass in what effectively was his tomb, but technically I wasn’t. I was just along for the ride in a skeleton.
I advanced to the open door and froze. Magic flickered in my mind’s eye, and creatures whirled about the great room beyond. Necromancers turned on sorcerers. Men died horrific deaths. Screams echoed through the tower. I stepped backward and shook my head to clear it, and the room became empty once more, except for dusty furniture. Kolta’s presence beside me was reassuring. He gave no indication he had shared my vision.
More voices. Boots thumped on the plank outside.
I rapped Kolta’s scapula and headed up the stairs at the end of the hallway, following the curve of the outer wall. We clacked and scrambled up the steep steps, around the curve, and out of sight of the hallway.
Several people spoke in low voices as they moved past the skeleton guards. Fortak’s distinctive cough echoed through the tower.
I climbed another step and then stopped. This was silly. We were just another couple of skeletons so why were we skulking around the corner like a pair of naughty apprentices? Before I could start back down, a rattling of bones drew my attention to the floor above, so I continued up instead. At the top, two skeletons barred the way, brandishing iron bars as clubs. Their red eyes scrutinized me, and I stood perfectly still for a long moment. Was I supposed to make some kind of signal? Apparently satisfied, they headed away in opposite directions along a wooden landing. I felt invincible. This was so much fun.
The stairway to the next floor above had been bricked up, so we had no choice but to follow the other skeletons. We emerged onto a gallery that circled around the upper part of the great hall we had just visited, the one from my dream. A single door exited the gallery opposite us, but it too had been bricked up.
I surveyed the room below. A dozen chairs surrounded a huge wooden table, and the hide of some bizarre creature had been stretched and nailed to the longest wall. Moments ago, the fireplace had been dark and cold, but now flames roared between the stacked logs. The flickering orange contrasted oddly with the stark shafts of early daylight stabbing across the room from numerous arrow slits. The everfire bowls from my dream were dry and no longer burned.
I turned my attention to the men filing into the room. Fortak walked directly to a wooden throne at the head of the table nearest the hearth. He squirmed into the unpadded seat and coughed into his handkerchief. I was careful to act the uninterested guard, hoping no one would notice there were now four skeletons up here instead of two.
Duke Imarian and Master Begara entered. I leaned heavily on the gallery railing. No wonder Begara hadn’t wanted me going to Fortak. Begara had been such a gentle soul. His history lessons had been the highlight of my studies. Damn, it had been his idea for me to seek out Babbas. Maybe he hadn’t known that Fortak had meant for the bargee to trap me? How could he be a part of this despicable Covenant?
Then Phyxia glided into the room.
I almost toppled over the railing. My finger bones crunched as I made a fist. She moved to a vacant chair of her own accord—no restraints, chains, or manacles, not a word or attempt to flee. She wore a diaphanous gown that would make a normal woman turn blue with cold. Her head was uncovered, and while I could usually tell her mood by the color of her horns, everything looked red in my supernatural eyesight. Had the sons-of-bikkas drugged her? As if sensing my urge to hurtle down the stairs and into the room, Kolta moved up beside me.
Two final men entered in a hurry, pausing only to close the door. Something about the first man screamed military, though he bore no weapons. His face was scarred and weathered, and his head was bald. The last man to arrive looked younger, athletic but well muscled, with ordinary travel clothes beneath his swirling gray cloak. He greeted the others in a heavily accented Wynarese, and he bore the distinctive red beard of the Northerners.
“Well?” Fortak asked.
“That boy…Maldren, survived your efforts,” the Duke said.
“I know that.” Fortak glared at Begara.
“You had no right to use my daughter to distract him. You promised—”
“I expected him to accept the challenge of training her and stop prying. That boy always disappoints.”
“Inquisitive like his mother,” Begara said.
“I can see that.”
I glanced at Kolta but he ignored me, his glowing red eyes locked on the scene below. His skeletal hands gripped the railing tightly.
Fortak swiveled to face the Duke. “You told the Council that I…that the Guild is willing to help?”
The Duke nodded. “They didn’t appear unduly concerned about the fires. Perhaps—”
“They have yet to feel the pain. Only then will they act.”
I snapped to attention.
“Why should the Council worry about burning slums?” the bald man asked. “It plays right into their hands. A tighter grip on the weak. Put out the fires. Rebuild the streets. People are grateful.”
Fortak looked thoughtful.
“They will care if the fires moved across the river into wealthier districts.” He scowled at the Duke. “Lean on them. I want them scared with the coronation coming. By the time I save the city from burning to the ground, I want them running to me for guidance, fawning over me with accolades. Over us.”
He cleared his throat, coughing phlegm into his handkerchief.
“It would impress them more,” the Duke said, “if you came out of your hole and met with them, re-pledged your allegiance to the Crown Prince.”
“I told you before,” Fortak said in a calm, controlled voice. “I refuse to go down on one knee to placate the Council. I will teach them all a lesson, and then the new King will owe me a favor.”
No one moved. No one spoke. All eyes stared at the Guildmaster. I couldn’t believe the treason in his words. Cashing in on death and suffering for personal power was beyond even him. Wasn’t it?
“It’s no coincidence that we meet in this place,” he said, as if delivering a lecture to students. “Prime Guildmaster Caradan once took the Guild on a bold new path. I’m sure he would approve of our cause. With his power we could achieve much greatness for Malkandrah.”
Caradan again! I gritted my teeth. How did all these pieces fit together?
Fortak’s eyes swept every part of the room as if he expected Caradan’s ghost to be present and listening. When he looked up at the gallery, I turned away and joined the pacing guard skeletons. I imagined Fortak’s stare on my back. Had he sensed our presence?
Kolta stood before me, and a horrible thought gripped me. What if Kolta was one of them, ordered to restrain me here? I froze. Should I turn back to the stairs or would that be suspicious? Sto
p it, Maldren. You can trust your tutor. Kolta would never side with Fortak.
“What about the boy?” the bald man asked.
“Find him. Double your spies, Imarian.”
I risked a glance at the Duke, but his attention was focused on the men at the table. I rubbed my nose. Instead of skin, I scratched a series of small bones. Oh yeah. I’d forgotten. He clearly hadn’t told Fortak about our meeting yesterday. Ayla was better leverage than I’d imagined.
Begara sighed. “We should wait for the Council. I’m not happy about further destruction. So many have died already.”
“You are no longer with us?” the bald man asked.
“Yes, of course, but I think we’ve made our point. No more fires.” Begara squirmed in his chair.
Fortak leaned across the table.
“Have you not been listening? We must up the ante, force them to act. Begara…” He reached out and patted the master’s arm. “The future of our Guild, perhaps the city itself, rests upon our plan. If I must, I’ll burn whole districts to the ground.”
My jaw dropped, threatening to dislocate my lower mandible.
He wasn’t trying to stop the fire creature. He was controlling it.
I teetered dizzily and steadied myself on the wall. Now it all made sense. I stared down at them, my skeleton eyes and the firelight tingeing the group red, like some demonic gathering. I had studied under two of these men. What pact with Lak had they inked to unleash such atrocities upon our poor city, to slaughter innocents, to murder my friends? Begara, how could you?
Skeletal hands gripped the railing beside my own. I recognized the missing finger and looked into Kolta’s glowing eyes. Damn these skeletal forms that I could not read his emotions. His hand covered mine and tapped it gently. I was not alone. What was going through his head? Did he understand Fortak’s confession?
“Are you certain you can retain your grip on that thing?” The Wynarian spoke for the first time.
