10: His Holy Bones (12 page)

Chapter One Hundred and Four

If he closed his eyes and concentrated, John knew he could catch a glimpse of Kyle. But previous visions had done little to reassure him. Again and again he had watched Kyle race across the flowing dunes of the northern rift, the voracious white bulk of hungry bones persuing him as he lured them toward Ji. Their long white teeth gnashed only inches from Kyle before he disappeared into the Gray Space. The sight always left John rattled and the sky above him darkened with storm clouds.

After three days John had realized that it was better not to watch over Kyle, as much as he wanted to. Instead he concentrated on his own surroundings, attempting to bury his anxiety in the perfect interlacing of deep roots and fine threads of mycelia. John felt the miles stretching ahead of him; the stony forests of the Iron Heights slowly gave way to the sloping, tilled soil of the Bousim farmlands. Countless tiny seeds cracked open and pushed with infinite persistence through the rich soil, climbing towards the warmth of the spring sun.

John relaxed in his saddle, moving in rhythm with his big tahldi’s gait. Now and then, he stroked the buck’s velvety jaw and murmured a few reassuring words. Even after decades, whenever he calmed a tahldi like this, he still thought of Fenn.

Ahead of him, Hirran rode alongside two of her younger sisters, who were serving as her attendants. Kahlirash’im flanked them on either side. They all carried rifles, even Hirran. Hunting spears and bundled grenades hung from the kahlirash’im’s saddles.

In the quiet of the forest, they seemed over-armed. Several kahlirash’im bolted their rifles as a mass of melting snow slid from the branches of a pine, causing the limb to suddenly bounce up.
They were still too near the northern rift not to be nervous, especially with the signs of spring so obvious all around them. It was the season when the hungry bones hunted and they all knew it.

But this year John noticed a renewed confidence in the kahlirash’im and among many of the shepherds they encountered in the hills. Word of Ji destroying the hungry bones had already spread. John overheard their excited comments and saw fresh optimism in their expressions. At last, they had a hope that this year would bring an end to the scourge of the hungry bones.

 John wanted to believe as much, but he knew that no matter how many Ji destroyed, Laurie and Fikiri could keep making more. Destroying the hungry bones alone wasn’t a lasting solution. John knew that and yet he couldn’t bring himself to consider harming Laurie. He couldn’t kill someone he loved, not again.

John’s tahldi shook its head and he realized he was tensing up too much. He relaxed his legs and tried to think about the soft layers of pine needles and fallen leaves blanketing the dark soil of the forest floor. But he couldn’t quite lose himself in the play of decomposition and growth. Something felt wrong. Something deep inside him.

He wished Kyle were here with him and not out there at the edge of the rift.

Suddenly the shriek of the tearing Gray Space cut through the quiet forest. A flock of birds startled from the trees behind him and John quickly reined his tahldi around and brought his rifle up. Pesha staggered from the trees. She carried the yasi’halaun in her arms and her face was caked with blood.

John immediately leaped from his tahldi and rushed to Pesha’s side. The kahlirash’im closed around them. Pesha stumbled to John. Her eyes were wide and afraid.

“The devil came,” Pesha gasped out the words.

“Are you all right?” John asked, but Pesha hardly seemed to register the question. It disturbed him that Kyle wasn’t here with her.

“The devil killed Ji.” Pesha suddenly knelt at John’s feet. She clenched her eyes shut and tears trickled down her cheeks. “He
killed her.”

“No,” Hiran whispered. “It can’t be.”

John stood frozen, for a moment unable to believe what Pesha said. It wasn’t possible. Ji had survived the fall of the Eastern Kingdom, her enslavement within the issusha’im, and even John’s ruin of the northlands. She couldn’t be killed.

And yet there was Pesha crouched on the ground, sobbing. She gripped the yasi’halaun to her chest, bowing her head against its deeply grooved blade. John felt a tremor pass through his body. The sky above him was utterly still; not even the slightest breeze moved, as if even the air was too shocked by the loss of Ji to respond. A deep, tearing pain spread slowly through John’s chest. He wanted to scream out, but instead he forced himself to hold his hurt inside, protecting the surrounding world from his anguish. John knelt down beside Pesha.

“Tell me what happened,” John asked as calmly as he could.

“Fikiri was waiting in the Gray Space with hungry bones. He attacked us and Kyle’insira fought him, but I couldn’t get to the yasi’halaun soon enough. I…” Pesha’s fragile composure crumbled. She pressed her face down into the dirt and leaf litter and sobbed.

“Pesha, you have to tell me what happened.” John heard the strain in his own voice. “I have to know.”

Pesha drew in a trembling breath.

“I couldn’t get to the yasi’halaun. Fikiri caught me and Kyle’insira had to rescue me but that left Ji…She protected the yasi’halaun. Fikiri cut her throat with his curse blade…” Pesha’s voice broke and she wiped savagely at the tears pouring down her face.

“What about the others?” John asked. “What happened to them?”

“I don’t know. I took the yasi’halaun and ran…I don’t know if Fikiri chased me or not. I just ran until I found you. It was my duty…”

“You did the right thing,” John assured her. “How long have you been looking for me?” His worst fears already rushed through his thoughts; his hands were shaking.

“I don’t know. I was in the Gray Space…” She glanced up to the sky. “All night and most of the morning…I think.”

Too late for him to reach Ji. Too late for him to stop Fikiri.

“It’s all right,” John said reflexively. It wasn’t, but Pesha needed some reassurance.

“Do you think Kyle beat Fikiri?” Pesha asked hopefully. “They could all be all right…”

“They could be,” John replied. But he knew that Kyle would have been here at his side already if that were the case.

John closed his eyes and concentrated. Slowly, he felt his senses rise over the dark coniferous forest and rush north across the gray expanse of the rift. His vision swept out to the island of ruins that jutted up from the northern sea. He gazed down through dark, wet caverns to a small opal-lined chamber. He felt Ravishan’s presence rush over him, but all he saw were broken white bones. They lay on the bed of black obsidian where John had left them nearly thirty years ago. John felt his throat tighten at the sight of the shattered ribs and cracked skull. He had spent years trying to escape this vision. He snapped his eyes back open.

His heart hammered in his chest. Where was Kyle? Why couldn’t he find him? Was he somewhere in the depths of the Gray Space, where John could not feel him? John tried to reassure himself with the idea, but another situation seemed more likely. If Fikiri fled from Kyle, then Kyle would follow him to the island. There, thousands of spells and curses twisted space and time. Some chambers even John had difficulty peering into. The areas not hidden from John teemed with deadly traps and voracious monstrosities.

For an instant he remembered the shrieking halls of Umbhra’ibaye. The curses seeping from the walls and the bones writhing against red wires. He remembered Ravishan’s wide, surprised eyes and the burning heat of his blood.

Just the thought of Kyle in those ruins horrified him.

“I have to go to the northern rift.” John turned to Hirran. She looked pale and simply nodded.

“I will offer Joulen your condolences and your apologies.” Hirran’s voice was barely audible. She scrubbed the tears from her eyes and straightened in her saddle.

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate your company more than mine anyway,” John replied. He had no doubt that Hirran would know how to soothe the young Bousim gaunan. She seemed to have inherited as much of her uncle Pirr’tu’s charm as her mother Kansa’s beauty.

 “Chyemon,” John called to one of the kahlirash’im. “Take Pesha to the physician at Yah’hali. She can ride my tahldi.”

“I should go with you. I should protect Kyle’insira from—” Pesha began, but John cut her off with a shake of his head.

“You’ve done your duty, Pesha. Let Chyemon take you to a physician,” John spoke firmly and quickly. He didn’t have time to argue with Kyle’s student. He needed to get to the northern rift.

John took the yasi’halaun from Pesha and then helped her onto his own tahldi. She sagged against the buck’s thick neck. Cheymon caught the animal’s reins.

Briefly, John considered the yasi’halaun. Like any object that had been made from the body of a Rifter, it felt warm in his hand and familiar. And yet he felt strange holding it. The yasi’halaun was so much a symbol of the Kahlil. It belonged with Kyle. It should be returned to him.

 “Go,” John ordered Chyemon. He turned to Hirran and the rest of the kahlirash’im. “I’m going to call the wind. All of you should get a good distance clear of me as quickly as you can.”

John saw the fear on all of their faces. Even Hirran, who had witnessed this many times already, looked alarmed. They all urged their tahldi ahead. John waited, feeling the vibrations of the animals’ hooves hammering against the soft earth until they grew faint.

Thirty years ago he would have ripped the earth open and torn the sky with hurricane winds. His desperation would have been all that mattered, but the land had already endured too much for his volatile needs. There were farms and villages between him and the northern rift. People and animals would be killed if he indulged his desire to reach Kyle at any cost.

Instead he concentrated on the highest winds, drawing a strong cold current down. Gusts of sleet and ice swept down, tearing nearby tree branches and freezing fragile spring buds at John’s feet. John pulled the frigid wind around himself. An excited shudder passed through the hilt of the yasi’halaun as the brutal force of the wind wrapped around John and lifted him high into the overcast sky.

Water vapor condensed to ice and clung to his skin and hair. Frost traced delicate filigrees across the grooved, black blade of the yasi’halaun. The air grew thin and John’s lungs burned for oxygen. Still he rode the current higher, farther above the populated lands into heights where his passage would do little harm.

As he soared up through the frigid white masses of clouds, memories of Ravishan and the dank corridors of Umbhra’ibaye came to him in flashes. A swathe of dark storm clouds whirled around from him. Lightning crackled over him. Angry winds lashed the sky, rising from John’s agitation. In his hands, the yasi’halaun arced up to catch bolts of the wild electricity. John sensed its pleasure at the surging force of the rising storm.

 John forced himself to calm down. He drove his fear for Kyle back and concentrated on the braiding currents of the turbulent skies. He reached out and soothed the storm, as he might have pacified a tahldi. In turn, the icy currents calmed. John swept over miles of rolling country. The rugged hills slowly gave way to meadows and then to terraced farmlands. Farther north, deep fissures stretched from the jagged edge of the chasm.

Fertile soil eroded to charred gray sands. The ground beneath John felt brittle as old bones. The wastes at the edge of the chasm always put John on edge. The air here felt thin and scarred. The ground seemed to shudder, as if terrified by the memory of his touch.

He found Saimura at the northmost point of the chasm. His clothes and hair were coated with gray sand. He spat deadly curses over the stones at his feet and then hurled them out into the crashing sea. Where the cursed stones fell, the waters hissed and steamed.

Saimura seemed to take no notice when John approached. He stared intently out across the vast mists to the distant outline of the ruins of Rathal’pesha.

He gripped another stone and growled out harsh Eastern curses. John caught his arm before he could throw it. Saimura swung around, a snarl on his dirty face and his fist raised to strike. The moment his eyes focused on John all the strength seemed to drain from him. His fist dropped to his side. The half-finished curse stone fell to the ground. Saimura stared at John with wide, red-rimmed eyes and then he slumped forward against John’s chest. He buried his face in John’s coat and held onto him with a desperate grip. Saimura’s body shook with silent sobs.

 John wrapped his arms around Saimura. He bowed his head down against the top of Saimura’s head. For a few minutes they simply stood there embracing silently, both mourning Ji.

When Saimura finally spoke, his voice was ragged.

“She knew,” he said. “She had to have known what would happen and she did it anyway. Why didn’t she tell me—” Saimura’s voice broke.

“I don’t know,” John whispered. He ran his hand over the back of Saimura’s head as if he were comforting a child.

“I can’t find Kyle,” Saimura said. “I looked, but I can’t…I’m so sorry, Jahn.”

John had expected as much, and yet his stomach still clenched as though he had been punched. He had known better and yet he had still secretly hoped that Kyle would be here with Saimura.

“I’ll find him,” John said.

“He went after Fikiri.” Saimura pulled back a little from John. His expression was hard and stark. “If he’s alive, then he has to be out there on the island.”

“I know,” John said.

“Are you going after him?” Saimura took another step back from John, studying him.

“I have to,” John said.

“The last time—” Saimura began.

“I won’t let that happen again,” John said firmly.

Saimura scowled down at the jagged cliff of the chasm. He said, “Are you sure?”

John glared at the darkening clouds above him. Of course he wasn’t sure. He had no idea what would happen.

“I have to go,” John said.

“Are you taking the yasi’halaun as well?”

John frowned at the long, steely blade. He wanted to return it to Kyle. He wanted to lay it in his hands. That had been the only thought in his head when he had taken it, but now he realized how foolish it would be to bring something so powerful into Loshai’s realm.