Brood of Bones (31 page)

“The apostate.”
Priest Abwar had turned to me. “I’m surprised to see you down here with us simple, god-fearing men.”

I could not reply to him from this distance, out of respect for the Flood Moon and the drowned ancestors. The priest tromped forward, splattering my gowns with mud.

“As little as you deserve your position,” he said, “you can still service me and satisfy the god.”

I whispered with a hiss. “Exactly what are you suggesting?”

“Priest Salkant has the backbone of a stick insect and won’t consent to the sacrifices. He says it would damage our reputation and decrease trade, but what good is reputation if everyone dies to a god’s culling scythe?”

“Reputation is more valuable than life,” I said. “If Salkant of the Fate Weaver forbids you from doing something, he must have reason.”

He gestured with raised fists. “I must appease the Ever Always, before the women birth His judgment of death. I’ve torn down your abominable wall and sacrificed a hundred oxen. It is not enough. I must give the god people.”

I blinked three times. “How does one ‘give’ the god a person?”

“By chanting as their blood flows down the ziggurat steps.”

“You do not mean...you cannot mean—Oh, how monstrous!”

“Not at all.
It’s an honor to die to save your nation from flood, and our ancestors approved of the ritual. The city has a rich history of priests preventing floods with human sacrifice.”

Aghast, I struggled to find the breath even to whisper. “I do not recall ever reading of that.”

“Salkant has cobwebs for guts, but with the support of the Flawless, I could do what needs doing.”

I had no intention of accommodating Priest Abwar, yet his willingness to harm others increased my resolve to test him for being the Soultrapper. “You will have my support, if you can produce two outcomes. First, I wish to know more of Bone Orbs. What can you tell me of them?”

“Bone Orbs?
You did say, ‘Bone Orbs?’ Yes, well, of course I know of Bone Orbs. They’re the lumps where broken bones don’t heal properly.”

I had forced my sleepy eyes open to watch his reactions, although I would have to wait to evaluate them. By his words, he seemed to know nothing of the unchildren, yet words could be false.

“Very good,” I said. “Second, you must cut your palm. The waters of the Ever Always should taste your blood.”

“My—my blood?”

Soultrappers bled themselves, Tethiel had said, and I wished to observe the ease with which the priest shed his own blood. He had little problem with the blood of others, as the dark crusts on his sleeves attested, not to mention the rust-colored grime under his fingernails.

“The Ever Thriving, Always Dying,” he said, “would have no wish to see my blood. I embody Him, and to cut myself would be to cut His divine personage.”

“Nevertheless, I refuse to condone human sacrifice, unless you begin with your blood.
A prodigious
gout of it.”

I was grateful to Tethiel for reassuring me that no god had created the unchildren, freeing me from considering the option of human sacrifice. Now, I would condemn it in any event.

Priest Abwar lifted a knife to his palm then lowered it again to sharpen it against a whetstone on his belt. He dropped the knife into the mud and cursed.

“Arse worms!”

Wiping the blade against his robes, he rested the edge on his palm. I believe his hand trembled. He closed his eyes and eased the blade forward and back as if cutting a piece of lettuce.

I was not sure if he had pierced his skin until three red drops rolled down his wrist, their color contrasting with the sudden paleness of his face. His arms drooped to his sides, and his three chins rolled upward as he tilted. Only when he had impacted into the mud and speckled me did I realize he had fainted.

“Spellsword Deepmand, my business here is finished. Inform the acolytes that it will not be human sacrifice that saves our city. It will be me.”

In carriage and in dream, I confirmed that the priest’s terror at cutting himself had not been feigned. I might have interpreted this fear as worry that I would discover his identity as the Soultrapper, yet his eyes had not dilated and demonstrated similar fright when I had mentioned the Bone Orbs.

Glee had elevated Priest Abwar’s face at the proposition of human sacrifice. As noxious as the idea seemed to me, I believed he relished killing and bloodletting others.

My search was for another variety of despicable. After
Burdening
the grime from my gowns, I decided that Abwar of the Ever Always was probably not the Soultrapper: By demolishing the Flood Wall, he endangered not only the citizens of Morimound but the Bone Orbs as well. The Soultrapper would wish the mothers protected, a position upheld by Salkant of the Fate Weaver.

Salkant's command of the pregnancies would explain why his daughter had avoided the condition. My mirror scrutinized him. He gave both women and men calculating glances out of the corners of his eyes. When he regarded me, I read veneration in his face. That was reasonable enough, given my station, yet he unsettled me by having to repress expressions of eagerness at the mention of the Seventh Flood. He hoped it would come; he wished for a catastrophe that would kill the greater majority of the Morimound people.

Priest Salkant had predicted the Seventh Flood, and he would have an interest in seeing his prophecy occur. He might have gone as far as to cause the disaster himself, by implanting the city’s women with Bone Orbs.

I wondered if I now had sufficient cause to summon Tethiel, or if I should wait for additional proof. Not knowing how Priest Salkant could have touched so many women still galled me. I could mention “Bone Orbs” in front of him to see how he reacted, yet he struck me as a more calculating person than Abwar of the Ever Always; he might assume my motive and harm me to guard his secret. Deepmand might not be able to protect me from the Soultrapper’s magic.

Tethiel commanded power, illusion or not, and I wanted him by my side when I confronted the true Soultrapper. The more I thought about Tethiel, the more advantages I saw in contacting him tonight; with him accompanying me, I could think with clarity. If Priest Salkant revealed himself as the Soultrapper then justice would fall on him in one second.

Once I left my carriage, the balcony over the front door of my manor sheltered me from a downpour. Amid the rush of water, I heard a splashing and crunch of gravel, no doubt from a gardener running to escape the rain.

Two servants paused in opening the manor door to glance behind me, and I sensed Deepmand Lightening his scimitar. Not knowing why he would activate the enchantment, I twisted and leaned to see past my golden hump.

An acolyte approached at an irreverent speed, and I worried he would not be able to stop himself before colliding with me. Only then did I notice the glint of a dagger in his hand, and I had no time to ponder what impropriety he hoped to commit.

The scimitar swooped down, Burdening as it dropped through the acolyte. I flinched as Deepmand attacked and was relieved to see that the scimitar had encountered no resistance in its swing. He must have missed.

Maid Janny was screaming, and the acolyte now rested on the ground in a most extraordinary position. One arm, his head, and half his torso lay perpendicular to the remainder of his body. A red substance mixed with the rainwater as it spread from him, seeping into the gravel.

An open-mouthed moment elapsed before I realized that Deepmand had not, in fact, missed. I did the sensible thing and advanced a few more steps toward the door, pulling my gowns away from the blood. After discerning that a minimum of splatter had reached me, I lifted my chin to the Spellsword.

“That was rather brash, Deepmand. I was hardly in any danger.”

He peered at the surrounding gardens then glanced from his bloodied scimitar to my golden hump, which he should have known would have protected me from the attack.

“My apologies, Elder Enchantress.
There could’ve been more than one assassin.”
 
His words ground against each other with tension, almost in a growl. I disliked his tone.

Although Deepmand had defended me from highway robbers before, this occasioned the first definitive attempt on my life, and I admitted a measure of satisfaction that someone deemed me important enough to assassinate. This acolyte must have been one of the Soultrapper’s followers, sent out of fear that I would soon expose him.

I was on the brink of discovering the Soultrapper.

“Mistress Enchantress,” a servant asked, “are you well?”

Realizing I grinned down at the corpse in an unseemly manner, I corrected my expression.
“Maid Janny, turn over the portion of the body with the head.
I wish to see his face.”

Janny had pulled her bonnet down over her eyes. She did nothing more productive than weep.

I said, “Oh, you are quite useless.”

Spellsword Deepmand nudged over the corpse with his scimitar, and I saw the dead man wore a surprised expression. I did not recognize him yet, although I noticed his robes bore the eight-sided stylized depiction of the Fate Weaver, with her spider body adorned with human face and hands.

Inside my manor, I wasted no time in falling asleep. I confirmed in dream that I had never before seen this acolyte; in addition, his face portrayed less hatred than I would have expected for an act of blind passion. Rather, he seemed focused on the goal of ending my life, suggesting he might have acted under orders.

I decided his Fate Weaver vestments did not necessarily implicate Priest Salkant. The assassin might have stolen his garb, or his membership in the order might be supplanted by his pact with the Soultrapper. Still, this bore mentioning to Tethiel, and I hoped to see him imminently.

Upon waking, I took a mid-afternoon lunch with Alyla. She waited until after I had finished eating before she spoke. “Dhatrod told me someone tried to hurt you.”

“Clearly that someone failed, and nothing more needs to be said concerning it.”

I could not help but glance at her navel; previously an indentation, it now thrust outward. She scratched at her new stretch marks.

The sun would have to set before I could contact Tethiel through the Feaster Physis, and I passed the time sleeping. Although I considered drawing a replica of the assassin’s face, to be dispersed across the city to find his
associates, that
might frighten the Soultrapper into unwanted action. He might prepare to defend himself by attempting to harvest the Bone Orbs before they fully solidified.

Better, I decided, to surprise the Soultrapper. Of course, sending a follower to kill me showed desperation on his part; he might already be preparing for my arrival, and each hour I delayed benefited him.

Soultrappers could control minds, I reminded myself, and the assassin perhaps did not attack me out of free will. He might not even have had an obvious connection to the Soultrapper, who might thus still feel secure. I might still have time.

A flashing amethyst beckoned me to wake, and I found Mister Obenji leaning over me. He still wore the turban that Sri the Once Flawless had embroidered with the symbol of the gods divine: the Weaver’s octagon, enclosed by a solar eclipse.

“Is it night yet?” Yet, even as I asked, I saw that daylight shone in from the window.

“Elder Enchantress Hiresha, the Ambassador Tethiel awaits you in the pink parlor.”

Pink topazes were rare, and I had given one of the more distinguished parlors a theme of corresponding color, envisioning pleasant hours would elapse there with other mothers as our children played under the tables draped with lace and clambered up pink ottomans to wallow in pink pillows on pink couches.

As I strode into the parlor, I realized the bright color complimented Tethiel’s satin jacket and the doilies were reminiscent of his lacey cuffs; however, both his foppish attire and the feminine atmosphere of the parlor jarred with his profession. I chided myself for rushing here instead of meeting him in a more somber room.

“You,” I said, “always claim to leave the city with the dawn. Yet you always return.”

“Then I am dependable in my inconsistency.”

He had risen as I entered the room, and he resumed his seat only after Maid Janny situated me on an ottoman. She laid out a tea tray and poured two cups, flinching as she set Tethiel’s in front of him on a doily.