The Lair of Bones (23 page)

Erin felt that the day was somehow strange, surreal. To her it almost seemed as if the line of clouds was following them. Ahead, on the horizon, a thin line of blue sky still held a promise of fair weather. But above them and at their back, the billowing vapors followed, like a dog wearily treading at the heels of its master. It did not matter if the party rode fast or slow. The clouds matched their pace.

Heedless of the strange signs in the heavens, Celinor talked to his father. Over a period of several hours he calmly related all that had befallen him since he'd gone to Heredon. He began with his first meeting with Gaborn, then told of his and Erin's battle with the Darkling Glory, and rendered his account of their race to Carris where Gaborn found Raj Ahten's troops occupying the city while a dark sea of reavers surrounded it. He related how Gaborn had used his Earth Powers to Choose Raj Ahten and his men along with all of the citizens of Carris so that they might defend themselves from the reavers. But even after Gaborn summoned a world worm to kill the fell mage that led the reaver horde, Raj Ahten would not bend the knee to Gaborn. Instead, like a dog he sought to ambush Gaborn after the battle. Gaborn used his powers to try to kill Raj Ahten, and for that act of sacrilege, the Earth withdrew them. He told how Gaborn could now sense danger to his Chosen, but could no longer warn them how to avoid it. Instead, he had to suffer as his people were slaughtered and torn from him.

As Celinor talked, Erin held silent. She did not trust King Anders. Her thoughts were muzzy from lack of sleep, and she was so tired that the very ride today had an unreal quality. All of the trees and hills seemed to be too defined and have sharp edges, and the light that flowed from heaven was overwhelming and tinged with yellow. She could detect some cold, but she was too weary to feel pain or pressure, or even to think much.

Throughout Celinor's recitation of his journey, King Anders rode with his head bowed and eyes nearly closed, deep in thought. It was as if he wanted to see the battle, and so was conjuring the image in his mind, living it as Celinor had done. From time to time he would break in on the narrative to ask questions. Usually, the questions were benign. For example,
he asked, “The spells that the fell mage cast, you mentioned that one of them wrung the water from you. How so?”

“When it hit,” Celinor answered, “it made the sweat instantly rise from every pore, and made you feel as if your bladder would burst, you had to pee so bad. Once the sweat started, it didn't stop. My clothes were drenched by the count of five.”

“And what about the need to pee?” King Anders asked.

“I did it where I stood, as did every other man,” Celinor said. “We were in the thick of battle, and had no time for niceties. Besides, there was no stopping it.”

King Anders nodded appreciatively at that, and let his son continue.

The account lasted for hours. Every question that King Anders asked, Celinor would answer easily—too easily for Erin's taste.

She was reminded again that King Anders had sent his son to see Gaborn as a spy. And though Celinor said that he mistrusted his father and was worried that the old king had gone mad, killing his own far-seer, Celinor still acted the part of a spy. He spared nothing. Erin wasn't sure if it was King Anders's own skill at eliciting responses—for during the entire conversation, his demeanor was simply that of a kindly man who wanted to understand the whole situation more clearly—or if Celinor just had a loose tongue.

Celinor told everything, down to the time that Erin chose him for her husband, in the way that horse-sisters did.

“Really?” King Anders responded to the news, looking back at Erin. “You married her? Your mother will be mortified!”

“How so?” Celinor asked.

“She would have wanted a big wedding in the South Garden—months of planning, a thousand lords in attendance.”

“I'm sorry to disappoint her,” Celinor said.

King Anders turned back and smiled warmly at Erin. “Oh, she won't be disappointed. Of that, I'm certain.”

When Celinor had finished his tale, King Anders asked, “You say that Gaborn traveled with a great trove of forcibles. How many of them were there?”

“Five big boxes,” Celinor said. “I suspect that Gaborn's father captured them from Raj Ahten when he took Longmot. Each box had to be lifted by
two force soldiers, so they could not have weighed less than three or four hundred pounds. I made it to be four thousand forcibles in each box.”

“Humph,” King Anders snorted in surprise. “A great trove indeed.” The soldiers at King Anders's back made appreciative noises at the mention of the treasure.

“Aye,” Celinor said, “it was a great treasure, and there were more besides. You could hear Gaborn's facilitators chanting night and day at Castle Sylvarresta, giving endowments, though Gaborn was loath to take any for himself.”

“Loath?” King Anders asked.

“He does not like the kiss of the forcible,” Celinor answered. “They say he is an oath-bound lord.”

“How many endowments does he have?” Anders asked. This was a deeply personal question, the kind of thing that one never discussed in public, in part out of social nicety, in part because it was so dangerous. It was the kind of thing that only an assassin would worry about.

“I haven't seen his scars,” Celinor said, “but I know that he lost his endowments when Raj Ahten killed his Dedicates at the Blue Tower. Afterward, he took a few endowments at Longmot, but it could not have been many—I'd guess perhaps fifteen—three each of brawn, grace, and metabolism, four or five of stamina, maybe a bit of sight and hearing. He has not taken any glamour or Voice, that I could tell.”

King Anders nodded appreciatively. “It sounds as if he is a good man. I only wish that he were a better king. Remember, Celinor, none of us who are in power can afford the luxury of such scruples.”

“Some folks think that scruples are a necessity, not a luxury,” Erin said. She regretted the words before they even left her mouth.

“That they are,” King Anders said turning around as best he could to face her with a warm smile. “I meant no insult to Gaborn. He is doing his best to manage a dire situation. Still, I feel that if he cares for his people, he owes it to them to take more endowments. True, a few Dedicates will die here and there—a loss that we all regret. But if Gaborn's people were to lose their king…”

He sighed.

Erin studied his face. Anders showed no outward sign that he planned to
try to kill Gaborn and take his forcibles, but Erin could not help but suspect that such schemes were spinning in his head.

King Anders gazed at Erin sidelong. “You don't trust me, do you?” Erin didn't answer. The only sound was the clopping of the horse's hooves as they pounded the dry dirt road. “Why not?”

Erin dared not tell him the truth, that she did not trust him because his own son feared that Anders was mad. He might have killed his own far-seer, and he had done all that was within his power to dispose of Gaborn.

Even now, Erin wasn't sure why King Anders was heading south to Mystarria. He said that he was going to try to stop a war that he had set in motion. But he wasn't going in haste.

Celinor filled the uncomfortable silence by blurting, “She had a dream about you. She dreamt that you were a locus.”

King Anders looked as if he would deny the accusation outright, but after a moment of thought gave her a queer look. “A what?”

“She dreamt of an owl in the netherworld,” Celinor went on, “that told her to beware of a creature called a locus, a, a sort of a focus for evil. It can get inside a man and wear him like a suit of armor.”

King Anders raised his hand and stopped his men. He turned his horse around and studied Erin narrowly, as if trying to think of a proper response.

“You dreamt of an owl?” King Anders asked. “Tell me, was it barn owl, or more of a hoot owl?” At her back, several knights guffawed in suppressed laughter. One made hoot owl noises.

Erin felt blood rise to her face. She was outraged by the fact that Celinor had told his father her secret. She never would have spoken openly of her dream. “It was an owl of the netherworld,” Erin said, “in a burrow beneath a vast, vast tree.”

“And it said I was a… locus?”

“No,” Erin said. “It didn't name you. It only warned me that a locus had come to our world, hidden in the Darkling Glory that Myrrima slew. As for whether or not it's inside you, I only know that it will be looking for a host, and you've been acting queer.”

For a moment, Erin thought that the men around her might take her seriously, but King Anders said, “Dear girl, in this dream of yours, didn't any toads or mice speak up in my defense?”

At that, the troops broke into a chorus of howls, and Erin's face went hot in anger. King Anders let them laugh for a moment, then held up his hand for silence. “I'm sorry,” he said. “That wasn't any way to speak to my daughter-in-law. I didn't mean to embarrass you. I'm sure that you had a most distressing dream—”

“It wasn't a dream,” Erin said hotly. “It was a sending, a true sending.” For an instant Anders got a pained expression. Behind him, Captain Gantrell rolled his eyes. “Raj Ahten's sorcerers summoned the Darkling Glory in Mystarria,” Erin explained, “at a town called Twynhaven. They burned the whole of it, using the folks there as human sacrifices to bring about their dark magic. They opened a door to the netherworld, and let the creature through. On our way back from Carris, Celinor and I stopped at the town. We found fiery runes among the ash, still glowing as they snaked across the ground in a large circle. The door to the netherworld still looked as if it was open. So I tossed my dirk down into the runes. It fell through the fire, and disappeared. It never touched the ground. We knew then that the door was still open.”

At this the men around Erin fell silent. They might laugh at her dream if it was only a dream, but each of them had heard of sendings, and as she explained the circumstances that led to her strange visitations, they began to look more apprehensive than amused.

“Later that night,” Erin said, “I dreamt of an owl in the netherworld that held my dagger in its beak. He was the one who sent me the warning.”

The Nut Woman spoke up. “It was a true sending, or I'm no wizard! I feel it in my bones. But take my word, it was no owl that spoke to you. It was a Bright One, or even a Glory. Much that is seen even in a true sending takes on the nature of a dream.”

Erin drew a breath in surprise. Could it be that a Bright One or a Glory spoke to her? These were creatures of legend. They had helped great folk like Erden Geboren. But she couldn't imagine that one would help her.

“Why would he appear to her as an owl?” Celinor asked.

“Because something about him is like Ael, the wise lord of the nether world,” the Nut Woman said. “Perhaps it's his name, or maybe the owl is a favored pet. But mark my words, we should heed this warning!”

There was a long moment of silence. Erin looked about. She was sur-rounded by men wearing the crow of South Crowthen, and a thought
struck her. King Anders wore the symbol of a crow, and owls hate crows. They'll kill them if they can, and a murder of crows will surround an owl in its tree at dawn and spend the day tormenting it, until they bring it down.

Is this why the messenger appears to me as an owl? Erin wondered.

King Anders said, “All right, let us imagine that it is a true sending. Why would you think that this… locus you called it?… why would you fear that it might come to me?”

“When Myrrima slew the Darkling Glory at Castle Sylvarresta,” Erin said, “an elemental rose from it, a great howling tornado. It went east. Binnesman said that it was capable of great evil still.”

“It could have come as far as Crowthen,” King Anders said with worry in his brow, “though many leagues lie between Castle Sylvarresta and my realm. And there are several cities between us—Castles Donyeis, and Emmit, and even the fortress at Red Rock. If what you say is true, this creature could be anywhere, inside anyone. It could inhabit a knight, a mer-chant, a washwoman. There are tens of thousands of people in those cities.”

But Erin suspected that it would not be content to merely occupy a washwoman. It had been a Darkling Glory, a lord of the netherworld. And a creature like that, bent on evil, would seek power. It wasn't just the direction that the elemental traveled. There was the matter of the far-seer that fell from Anders's watchtower, and the fact that he roused allies to fight Gaborn.

King Anders sat for a long moment, as if in deep thought. Finally, he sighed and addressed one of his men. “Sir Banners, take three men into Heredon, to the eastern provinces, and search the cities. See if you can find any sign of this locus—any murders that have been committed, any robberies.” Anders fell silent for a moment and bit his lip as he thought. “Perhaps I should go myself. I could use my gift to look into the hearts of men, and rout this creature out. It wouldn't be able to hide from me, or Gaborn.”

“That is, if it's in Heredon still,” Celinor said. “It could be in Crowthen. Or maybe it passed us all by completely, and went off to the east somewhere.”

King Anders nodded thoughtfully. “You're right. I could waste months looking for it. Besides, I have more pressing business to attend. I feel it in my bones. Our quest lies to the south, in Mystarria.”

So Banners took his men north, and King Anders rode south. Erin dared speak no more of her concerns, and time after time she considered how King Anders had responded to her news of the sendings. He had been quiet and gentle in his expression, but she had seen how he huffed when he spoke, as if he struggled to control his response.

She watched him throughout the day, and noted that most of the time he wore a beneficent smile. Often he would chuckle for little reason—when the sun came out from behind a cloud, or when a squirrel leapt from the Nut Woman's horse onto his own. But he did not giggle maniacally as the wind-driven wizard from Inkarra had.