Brood of Bones (28 page)

“But, there are so many,” I said.
“So many.
They can’t all hold souls.”

I thought of the souls of children trapped in Bone Orbs, unable to move anything, ever, not a limb, not a finger. If they did not have a firm grasp of the wrongness yet, they would once
born
. Their lives would be a void. A prisoner in solitary confinement could at least reach out and touch the walls around him, hear his own cries, yet the unchildren would have nothing in the blackness except loneliness and desperation for escape.

“That is why I must kill the Soultrapper now,” he said, “before the Bone Orbs are born and he gains the power of a god.”

I had feared for the women’s lives, yet the true danger was worse than I had ever imagined. My world felt as numb and dark as the consciousnesses of those imprisoned souls.

Realizing I was fainting, I first tightened the hand that had held my jewel, although I could not feel it now. My chin lifted upward, my eyes snapping open as I pitched face-first toward the floor.

The Lord of the Feast reached to catch my fall with one hand, and his fingers blackened and transfigured into things resembling claws, their razor points slashing through my sleeves and sinking into my arm to scrape the bone.

Pain whipped up my shoulder, my arm jerking away as white light flashed through my eyes.

“Hiresha!”
He had let go of me, leaving me swaying on my feet, each fiber of my arm throbbing. “It was only—”

“Illusion.”
I stared down at my unripped sleeves, my arm unharmed. It had felt real, and I could see why his magic was deadly: Too much pain and terror could stop a heart.

“I shouldn’t have tried to help you.” He frowned down at his clenched fists, which dribbled with blackness.

Worrying I might have dropped the red jewel, I opened my hand. The gemstone glittered alongside a triangular indentation in my skin. I snapped my fingers closed and spoke.

“We must locate the Soultrapper. Tell me how Bone Orbs are made.”

“My children never discovered that.”

“You said the Soultrapper was not strong yet. Therefore, he could not have used a spell with an area of effect. I believe he touched each of the women.”

“Magic is always most potent on the touch,” he said. “Even Feasters of small appetites can engulf a man if they catch him sleeping.”

“Caught in bed or not, over fifty thousand women could not be touched by any small number of Soultrappers.”

“There is never more than one in a city, though he may have followers,” he said. “Enchantress Hiresha, your servants are searching for you.”

Over his shoulder and through the rain, flickers lighted windows of the manor then winked out of sight, reappearing in the next room. The Lord of the Feast had not turned his head, and I wondered how he had known of the flurry of activity.

When the servants failed to find me, they would turn their attention outside, and I had no desire to see the Feasters confront Mister Obenji, Maid Janny, and especially not Deepmand. I would have to finish this conference quickly.

I asked, “The followers do not share the Soultrapper’s magic?”

“They would be powerless, snared by dreams of power.
The first of the Soultrapper’s worshipers.
When you search for him, look for a man of no great importance who nonetheless views others with a possessive eye and a sense of entitlement.”

“Are you suggesting I examine every man in the city? Does it even have to be a man?”

A few lights had paused in the manor, at windows facing us. I worried that someone had seen the glow of my earrings in the gazebo.

“We have never found a woman Soultrapper,” he said. “You should also know that it is a messy magic. A Soultrapper must use his own blood to inscribe a glyph onto a dying man, binding soul to corpse and corpse to Soultrapper.”

I rolled the jewel between two fingers. “Thus, a Soultrapper would be comfortable shedding blood.”

“His own blood,” he said.

“I still do not see how he could have created so many Bone Orbs. Can you tell me nothing more?”

“Only that you must find him soon, and without further help.
I’ll be gone with the dawn. When you’re sure of the Soultrapper, speak to Physis.”

“I do not want her in my home.”

A man shouted my name from a manor window, calling out for me as if for a runaway child. I believed it was Mister Obenji, and I would have some firm words with him.

“Physis will wait outside, at night,” the Lord of the Feast said, and he moved away from the gazebo entrance and bowed his head, inviting me to leave first. “I wish you productive dreams, Enchantress Hiresha.”

Still not knowing an adequate way of addressing him, I merely nodded and stepped past him. He did not move as my gowns rippled over his boots.

I stopped at the threshold of the gazebo, gazing out into the rainy night; in the light of my earrings, the droplets shone like falling sapphires. Each bead of water was distinct, yet I knew my mind would fog as soon as I left the Lord of the Feast and my adrenaline waned. I would plunge into weariness, unlikely to flounder to my feet until evening tomorrow.

“It is almost worse,” I said
,
“to have flashes of clarity.
When I sleep.
And right now. Without them, I would not know how much I was missing.”

He did not speak, although his eyes never left my face.

I held the jewel before me, between two fingers, its pavilion side up, and a raindrop shattered on its point. Despite all the time in my hand, the gem had remained cool. I wondered if it could be what I hoped: a red diamond.

It would mean I held the same jewel as had a goddess.

My fingers curled around it, bringing it to my chest. I glanced again at the Lord of the Feast, yet the intensity of his eyes forced me to look away.

“Your guards,” I said, “does your magic truly cure them of leprosy? At least, would a person believe herself cured of her ailments, at night?”

The question shamed me, yet even if Feasting magic only helped the diseased at
night, that
still amounted to something. I could think of nothing I would not give for eight hours of lucid thinking, in which to converse naturally, in which to experience the world.

“How long have you wondered this, Enchantress Hiresha?”

My voice quavered.
“For—for years.”

Muscles in his face trembled as if starting to form into a cohesive emotion, yet he swallowed it down, and it was gone. “Then know
,
the beginning of the Feast is the beginning of regret.”

I strode out of the gazebo, chin lifted so the rain would hide my tears. He had warned me against it. If even Tethiel could not recommend his magic then I would find no solace as a Feaster. He could have increased his influence over me by saying otherwise, by leading me on into shadows, yet he had not. My chest ached, although I could not say whether the feeling was relief from temptation, or despair of escape.

“Thank you,” I said over my shoulder, yet I was not sure he heard me. I thought of him gazing after me as the path crossed through the manicured bushes.

My world contracted, my awareness narrowing to a simple desire not to wander into a lily pond. Curtains of sparkling droplets fogged into a wet darkness. I yelped when a hand seized my shoulder; I had not even seen the man coming.

“Elder Enchantress, what warp in fate’s weave drew you out here?”

The bearded man wore a drenched shift and nightcap; an enormous scimitar was balanced on his shoulder. I had to blink twice more before I accepted this unarmored man as Deepmand: Only a Spellsword could activate the Lightening enchantment in that scimitar.

I clutched the jewel out of his sight. “You need not concern yourself with what I was doing.”

His voice raised, his hands clenching. “How can I protect you, if you wander into the night?”

“I question that you can protect me at all. A Feaster was in my chambers.”

“A Feaster?
The lady Feaster you invited inside?”

“I do not like your tone, Spellsword Deepmand. And do you feel that your raiment befits a representative of the Mindvault Academy?”

His wet shift clung to his legs, and black hair bristled outward from his calves. Without his armor, he was diminished, appearing too similar to a man for my liking.

“You spoke with the Lord of the Feast, didn’t you?” Deepmand glanced into the garden shadows with a sneer. “Elder Enchantress, you must have a guard of Bright Palms, or he’ll be the death of you and this city.”

I was no mood to be berated by anyone half-naked and hairy. “Deepmand, any further impertinence and I will request a deferral of your retirement.”

On unsteady feet, I hobbled past him into the manor.
Once dry and secure in my room, I freefell into sleep.
I arose in my laboratory, with the red jewel lifted before my eyes.

A trigonal stone, the four major facets of its crown were curved to lend gentleness to the cut. With an average width of five eighths of an inch, it made for an impressive jewel, despite the subdued and off-white lighting of my laboratory.

A sapphire bobbed above the operations table, glowing, as did all the jewels I had
Created
. I
Attracted
it to my other hand and scraped it with the red jewel. A white groove etched down the side of the sapphire, and my hands trembled so much that I lost hold of Tethiel’s gift; it dropped a foot and a half before I Attracted it back to my fingertips.

The red jewel was harder than corundum. I checked it for enchantment yet found nothing. This could be a diamond, and not just a false one Created in dream but a blessing of gods—a wonder, a treasure beyond price—which I could carry with me in reality.

One more test would prove it. My breath came in short gulps as I Attracted to my hand a silver diamond from a shelf. I activated it, and a ray of pure white light shot upward, extending through the skylight and into the night.

I moved the red jewel into the beam; the light bent as it entered a glassy facet. In that instant, I knew. The ray had refracted within the jewel to the characteristic angle of a diamond.

The red diamond shone with the color of rose petals held up to the sun. As more and more light pooled in the jewel, its facets lit the laboratory walls with triangle patterns, all spinning as the jewel revolved in the air between my fingers.

My dream city might forever stay locked in night, yet I felt in this moment the warmth of basking in summer’s grandest day.

Day Thirty-Nine, Third Trimester

Drowsiness paralyzed me, and I was too tired to swallow whatever foul-smelling ooze Maid Janny spooned into my mouth.

“Even babes eat applesauce,” she said. “Perhaps you’d rather have broccoli ground into a green paste.”

I mumbled something then succumbed to sleep.

In my laboratory, finding the magic user seemed more impossible now than ever. I had expected Tethiel’s information to lead directly to the source of the mass pregnancies.

Between examining the faces in my mirror of tailors and jewelers and other men whose professions allowed them to touch large numbers of women, I stole glances at the red diamond. I could improve its cut: Additional facets would throw more light back at the viewer’s eye, at the cost of shearing off pieces of jewel from its pavilion end.

I resisted the alterations, knowing I would only have one opportunity to perfect the stone, and the moment could be better savored once Morimound’s women were safe. Not to mention, the thought of diminishing the diamond in any way upset me more than cutting a gemstone ever had.

I forced my attention from the red diamond long enough to decide that the key to finding the Soultrapper lay in understanding the Bone Orbs and their creation. Summoning a replica unchild from memory, I scowled as it levitated above my operations table. When I had encountered the one unchild, yellow bands of cartilage had circumscribed each interlocking bone. The Bone Orbs would enlarge over time, and their external skeleton would replace the cartilage, bones fusing together to form something that looked like an eggshell with one groove running from end to end.