Brood of Bones (16 page)

“Will people see it that way?” Priest Salkant had narrow shoulders and a thin head, forcing one to speculate on the relative size of the brain. Below his line of sight, a spider with translucent orange legs and a bulbous yellow abdomen crawled up his flowing canvass pants.

“They should concern themselves with the imperiled state of their wives and daughters, rather than a few societal parasites,” I said. “Not to imply that
it
is a parasite, but you have a certain individual close to your knee.”

To my horror, he lifted the spider by its abdomen between two finger stumps. He placed it on a vine post, speaking all the while. “You stopped a Bright Palm from slaying a Feaster. You may as well have taken a bone from a wolf and expected not to be bitten. Morimound cannot afford condemnation by the Order of the Innocent.” His shears snipped away grape leaves. “If the reputation of Morimound suffers, our trade will diminish. If our mercantile clout diminishes, we become vulnerable to invasion.”

“The state of our unmarried women poses a greater threat to our reputation.”

Priest Salkant had moved far enough down the row of grapes that I was uncertain he would hear me. I walked uphill, to the other side of the vineyard, annoyed that he would consider his plants of greater import than
myself
. More so, the truth of his words agitated me.

I waited for him to tread into the range of polite discourse. “Lustrous Priest, the mothers must be well nourished, for a chance at delivering their...their babies. I request shipments of sardines totaling forty-three tons.
In addition, a mandate to eat egg and spinach daily to replenish their blood.”

Although I expected him to call an acolyte to arrange the task, he only nodded and continued his clipping. I realized he expected to remember the requests, something I would never trust to my waking memory.

“Then, Lustrous Priest, all that remains for me to do is examine your daughter.”

“There is no need. The Fate Weaver has assured me of her safety.”

“As an anomaly, she may give insight into the condition of the other women.”

“The benefits of seclusion for young ladies is no secret, and I am proud that Kishala has not lived an unguarded day in her life.”

“Nonetheless, I must insist.”

The priest rammed his shears into a belt loop then led me into his manor. The clutter of his furnishings and gaudiness of his chandeliers demonstrated a lack of taste.

We approached two women wearing scimitars who played a game of stones. The one with the spinning stick let it fall as they hefted themselves to attention in front of a brass door. Their bellies jutted outward.

“Men know to guard their gold,” Priest Salkant said, “but daughters are far more perishable. Observe the slot at the base of the door that permits the passage of necessities into the chamber and undesirables out. Kishala, it’s me.”

He rapped a signet ring against the brass portal, and a bony hand reached out from under the door, giving me a shock. The priest squatted down and cupped the hand in both of his.

“I make a point to hold her like this every day. I am not an uncaring father, after all.”

Maid Janny cleared her throat behind me with a strangled noise, which would have been rude had it been louder.

“Spellsword,” Priest Salkant said, “
if
you would situate yourself out of sight, I will open the door.”

“By your order, Lustrous Priest.”
Deepmand’s voice sounded a tad stiff as he clanked around a corner.

“You will note, Flawless Hiresha, that I carry the only key.”

I shook my head at the honorarium as Priest Salkant unlocked the door, and I noted the portal’s thickness. The flickering light inside attested to a room free from windows. A wealth of candles burned with the scent of jasmine.

The priest strutted into the chamber. “Kishala, I brought you a gift.
A visitor, Elder Enchantress Hiresha.
One day, you will have the same grandeur.”

I met the stare of a girl with an unfortunate resemblance to her father, her body with so little breadth that it appeared compacted. Her face was narrow enough to give the impression that her eyes were mounted on the sides of her head, although her gaze assessed my gowns and me with calculation. She wore only a silk shift.

The girl asked, “Am I to be an enchantress, Father?”

“Perhaps, my hatchling.
Perhaps.”

My gaze had wandered past her to an overflowing bookshelf then to hanging planters of ferns and small flowering plants growing toward the candles. Tables were strewn with maps, glass bowls on tripods full of bright fishes.

Jealousy tasted in my mouth as overripe lemon, not for the girl's imprisonment but for the forethought given her by her father. My own parents had never considered me more than a nuisance. The priest believed the lavish confinement best for her, a point I would not argue, not then.

My skin itched and twitched as I thought of her imprisonment. I worried she would be ill prepared for entering the world, no matter how well read. Her leanness also concerned me.

I asked, “Are you underfed?”

Although I possessed a more feminine frame than Kishala, my enchantment-induced nightly exercise prevented the accumulation of fatty tissue. My gowns hid all vestiges of this deficiency.

“We have talked about this,” Priest Salkant said. “You must eat more, Kish.”

The girl
shrugged,
the motion subtle with her truncated shoulders.

I asked, “Do you never leave the safety of these walls?”

“Father takes me to the roof garden twice a year. He even lets me decide what to plant, and I have written essays on horticulture, if you’d like to see.”

“That will not be necessary,” I said.

“So much more will grow outside, it’s amazing.” She reached to a planter, touching pale white flowers with her fingertips. “We haven’t gone out this year. Father says it’s not safe.”

“Something is negatively affecting the women of Morimound,” I said, “yet your father’s consideration has protected you. Lustrous Priest, I believe that will be all.”

The girl asked, “Can’t you stay and tell me about enchanting?”

“The Propriety Pledge prohibits my doing so.”

“What if father apprenticed me to you?”

“Many depend on me now, young lady.”

“Then, goodbye, I suppose. You have made this a memorable month.”

Although the size of the room had allowed most of my gowns to enter after me, I found myself unable to turn. Maid Janny heaved at the avalanche of silks, the gowns slipping from her grasp to spread outward in new directions. When I left the chamber, my raiment compressed in the doorway then swelled outward in the hall.

The priest locked the door behind him. “You will not wish to leave without tasting the estate vintage.”

Maid Janny mumbled behind me. “I need a drink, after seeing that poor girl.”

“Most kind of you,” I said to the priest, “yet I must return to the God’s Eye.”

“A golden-web spider dictated that you would stay. I always have a bottle on ice, along with a comparison. And I thank you for not mentioning you are the Flawless. Kishala studied law, before I realized the Fate Weaver had chosen you for the position.”

“I am sure she deserves it more.”

“Perhaps this weave is better, though. The position would have required her exposure.”

In a parlor, he uncorked a bottle and trickled into a glass a fluid with the coloration of dilute urine, which he subsequently forced into my hand.

“Here you
are,
the second best wine in Morimound.”

“I am afraid, Lustrous Priest, I must decline. Alcohol makes me drowsy.” In point of fact, it stupefied me.

“Just a sip, then.”

Scowling down at the pale fluid, I lifted the glass. It tasted exactly like what it was: rotten grapes.

“Now, experience this vintage.
I enhance its flavor by exposing the grapes themselves to the maximum possible sunlight.”

He thrust me a glass with considerably more wine. I wanted to refuse, yet I deemed he would have taken it as a slight. The wine stung my mouth in much the same manner.

A smile stretched over the priest’s face, admittedly no great distance. “Is it not bliss? I drink nothing else.”

I took a proffered handkerchief from Maid Janny and scrubbed my lips.
“A staggering accomplishment.”

While Priest Salkant turned to pour more wine into another glass, I passed mine to Janny. She tipped it upside down, drinking the fluid in two gulps then returning the glass to me, now empty.

“By the Fate Weaver,” he said, upon turning around again, “you must have enjoyed it!”

“Indubitably, although I must excuse myself.
I am expected at the Court.”

“May your thread
shine.
”

Spellsword Deepmand accompanied me to the carriage. Once I reached my flying laboratory, I considered how the daughter reinforced my theory of tactile spellcraft. The walls surrounding Kishala had thwarted the pregnancy-evoking touch. For the sake of sanity I decided to assume I dealt with magic users, with mortals I could hope to understand and surmount.

Now I had to locate the perpetrators. The Feaster had claimed not to have seen anything during the night. Therefore, I would have to speak to the acolytes about other possible groups who had the opportunity to touch every woman in the city.

A brief analysis disturbed me with the thought that the acolytes themselves, through their duties, would have had access to the greatest number of women.

As my gowns fluttered outward from my carriage, I pointed to the nearest acolytes, picking one representative of each god.
“You and you.
Attend me at the center of the Court.”

Once we had gathered apart from the bystanders, I spoke in a low voice.

“These pregnancies were not caused by a god but by magic.”

“No, the Ever Always filled the wombs with—”

“This magic came from one person, or one group of people, who touched each and every woman. You two must discern who could have laid their hands on so many, six months ago.”

One acolyte pointed to the other. “Those of the Fate Weaver touch
women,
they take a lock of hair before reading their destinies.”

“But we don’t read every woman’s web, no more than a few thousand a year,” the other said. “I’m more suspicious of Abwar of the Ever Always. His hands seem to get most everywhere.”

The Ever Always’ acolyte crossed his arms, grey sleeves sliding over each other. “No one man could’ve touched all Morimound’s women. Not even a group of men, without someone noticing. We are witnessing a god’s work.”

“Then it is a work of cruelty,” I said, striding off the Court.

I sat in my carriage and tried to think, yet, naturally, I could not until I dipped into sleep. The acolyte’s words frightened me with their reason: Nobody could have touched all the women, not without notice. Either I had to find who had witnessed them or admit that I confronted the will of a god, against which I would be powerless to protect my people. Women would die or give birth to something other than children, and Morimound would become infamous.

There had to be more to learn about the unchildren. I willed my mirror to reflect the image of the Bright Palm’s magic as it branched white into Sri’s womb. The light traced along distinct paths from a pulsing center and divided into the shape of a white sphere; this surprised me, as it seemed to indicate that the unchild had blood flow. A heart beat in rapid flashes. I realized I should have expected this because nutrients would have to reach the bones for them to grow, yet the concept of the unchild as a living entity and not some totem of death did not in any manner grant comfort.

A glimpse of it while I was regenerating Sri’s liver had frightened me away before I could better understand it. A closer observation of the unchildren’s internal workings might lead me to their makers. Each second of ignorance blistered me, and the thought that bones might be elongating by the hour in Alyla goaded me into such an overwrought state that I Repulsed my mirror against the wall, shattering it. Shards collided with the floating jewels. Fearing the glass would scratch the malachite gems and moonstones, I willed the glass to condense and fit its shards together; the mirror formed anew in a blink.