Brood of Bones (19 page)

He had witnessed me sighing, with my hand over my heart, or as near to that location as my gowns allowed. I took my cane from the crook of my arm, leaning on it and trying to think of a palliative way to tell him, yet nothing came to me.

“Faliti Chandur is dead. I could not save her.”

No sooner did his mouth open in shock than I fled outside into the darkness of night. Sitting in my carriage, I failed to think of where I should go and soon found myself in my laboratory. Drifting from one black wall to another, I realized I could not risk drawing another woman into my dream, as it might elicit her death, yet outside my dreams, I was powerless.

Deepmand drove me to my manor, and I stumbled inside to spend a few hours sleeping in the silk harness.

I stood atop my laboratory, in chill night gusts below the red moon, and I wanted to weep. Every woman in Morimound might die from the unchild within her.

I tried to convince myself that they could not all expire, at least not all at once, yet the fatal spell I had sensed had been simple, merely one of activation. Many such spells could be cast at the same time, even by a mortal. I pondered if I could distinguish a spell cast by a man from the power of divinity but decided I would at least need to see it done again, to search for human variation, and I had no desire to provoke another death.

Waking up, I felt as weary as if I had not slept in days. I had a hard time seeing my breakfast, and when my eyes focused on broccoli, I gagged. The thought of wombs sloshing full of venom put me well out of appetite.

A shattering noise from the front of the house was followed by a tinkling. Servants ran down the hall. The sound repeated, and I realized I heard windows being smashed.

“What is happening, Mister Obenji?”

His brow drawn, he rushed out, Deepmand looking after him. More windows broke, and I thought I heard shouting.

Mister Obenji returned in a huff. “There are some men outside. I’ll gather the help, and we’ll keep them out of the manor. Dhatrod can run for the city guard. Not to worry, I’ll handle everything.”

Deepmand asked, “Is it a mob?”

“No.
Not at all.
All the same, I trust Elder Enchantress Hiresha would be most comfortable closer to the back of the manor.”

“I should think not.” I left the table, walking toward the breaking sounds. “There must be some mistake. The people of Morimound are reasonable.”

Angry voices from outside filtered between the shards remaining in the crystal windows, and glass crunched as Deepmand strode in front of me. A young man had fallen below a window, gripping a cut on his forehead.

Mister Obenji strode toward him. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so, except for this blood.”

A servant woman rushed forward to help, slipping on the glass. She recovered before landing on her pregnant belly.

“Careful! My girl, do you feel any pain?”

“I’m fine.” She removed a scarf and pressed it against the young man’s head to staunch the bleeding.
“Just worried over Dhatrod.”

“Avoid stepping on this glass. Remember that you carry a...something breakable.”

A window down the hall exploded inward in a shower of crystal, and a stone clattered against the wall. I turned away from the servants.

“Spellsword Deepmand, attend me on the balcony.”

I walked upstairs and out to the marble balustrade. Men danced below me among the gardens; only, I began to suspect that they were not dancing but stomping flowers and kicking over statues. Several waved oil lamps in the direction of the front doors.

“Should I encourage them to leave, Elder Enchantress?”

I could form no answer, as
a numbness
overtook my mind and spread down my spine in a tingling. The people of Morimound could not be defacing my property. Their anger could not be meant for me, their benefactress, unless all these men had misunderstood Faliti’s death. I tried to think whether news of it could have spread in the few hours of morning.

Voices shouted below. “Why should she have this, after all she’s done to us?”

“She’s no Flawless neither!”

“Look, there’s the lily toad!”

“Kill her! It’s the only way for our daughters.”

Deepmand stepped in front of me and caught something, and I saw a brick in his gauntlet, encouraging me to wonder if it had been aimed at me. The brick crumbled in the Spellsword’s enchanted grip, its pieces raining on the men below the balcony.

The effect was a silencing one.

“I appreciate the gesture, Deepmand, even though it was unnecessary.” No brick could have hurt me, due to the enchantment in my golden hump.

“Certainly, Elder Enchantress.”

A familiar voice boomed over the estate grounds. “Stop, men of Morimound! This is not the way, for there is no guarantee the death of the apostate will appease the Ever Thriving, Always Dying.”

Priest Abwar flounced down the path, his arms and green sleeves swinging about him as if he wished to communicate with those appendages alone.

“The apostate designed the Flood Wall, but our hands built it. By shutting out the sky-sent waters, we spurned the gift of death and rebirth. We defied a god.”

His words gave me mental indigestion. Priest Abwar seemed to be calling me an “apostate,” yet I did not understand how he could when he had named me the city’s savior only days ago.

“The Ever Thriving, Always
Dying
cannot be controlled,” he said. “His will is absolute, His design irresistible. When the floods could not reach us, He cursed the wombs of our women. None have quickened because they do not carry life. They carry the blessing of the Always Dying.”

“Spellsword Deepmand, is he suggesting that my Flood Wall caused the mass pregnancies?”

“He might be, Elder Enchantress.”

Priest Abwar turned to point downslope, to the base of the city; the back of his robes depicted the moon on a background of undyed white, the color of death. “No hope remains for our daughters and wives as long as one stone of the Flood Wall remains stacked upon another. Men of Morimound, tear down that wall!”

“Deepmand, did he tell them to dismantle the Flood Wall?”

“I regret that he did, Elder Enchantress.”

“But they are all leaving. They are going to destroy it, and they mustn’t. Tell them they mustn’t.”

“Halt!” Deepmand’s bellow forced the men to glance back at me.

Although unaccustomed to the impropriety of shouting, I tried to speak so the men could hear me. “The summer rains will arrive next month. We require the Flood Wall to keep them out, or the city of Morimound may be inundated.”

Most of the men’s faces stayed blank, and I feared my voice had not carried. Abwar of the Ever Always lifted his hands, palms outward as if to block me from his sight.

“Do not listen to the apostate. Her magic tricked me into naming her the Flawless, and she has brought this evil upon us. Her hubris has polluted this city.
Now, to the Wall!”

The men returned the shout, “To the Wall!” as they left the ruins of my gardens. My trembling legs could not support me, and I slumped onto the marble tiles, my gowns slowing my descent as they plumed upward, blocking my view of the world.

I did not much mind the damage to my estate, as it still had fewer flaws than I. A flood, however, would bring catastrophe, and I dreaded that Abwar of the Ever Always could be right in proclaiming I had caused the unchildren through my audacity in believing I could stop the Seventh Flood and avert the will of a god.

After flourishing for over a century, Morimound might have reached its prime. Perhaps I was doomed to witness its fall into squalor and desperation. By citywide flood, or by death of all our women from unchildren, the Seventh Age might end in a matter of months.

“I will see to repairing the grounds,” Mister Obenji said, “and I’ll pay guards to protect the manor.”

“Deepmand, if you please. I feel I must retire to my room.”

The Spellsword lifted me to my feet. I teetered my way to the guestroom, to sleep and exert myself to understand how the men could so willingly invite their own destruction.

I reasoned those in the mob were affluent and not dwellers of Stilt Town, where waters had licked at house floorboards. To those in elevated brick homes, the threat of floods would seem distant, a stray historical fact, while the conditions of their female relatives obscured their every thought.

I searched for any possible course of action. The city’s only chance was that Abwar of the Ever Always was wrong, that the gods did not
conspire
our doom, and we faced only the designs of men.

If magic had created the unchildren then its users had employed a method that I did not understand. I had to turn my inquiry elsewhere, investigating not method but motive. Someone might wish to bargain the lives of our women for a ransom of the city’s diamonds, or another nation might plot to undermine Morimound. I loathed the idea of being in the power of foreigners, yet better them than a mishandling by gods.

In bitterness, I recalled that the Fate Weaver’s priest had also prophesized the coming of the Seventh Flood. Morimound might be fated to fall.

Waking, I learned that Priest Salkant himself had arrived and now waited for me in the ballroom.

“You should have left him in one of the parlors, Mister Obenji.”

“He claimed he was
meant
to meet you there, Elder Enchantress Hiresha.”

I found the priest picking through his mess of grey hair and casting an appraising eye on the ballroom’s chandeliers and vaulted windows.
“Ah, Flawless Hiresha.
Abwar of the Ever Always has withdrawn his support for you, which, to me, is the highest of recommendations.”

“Perhaps he is right to doubt me.”

“The Fate Weaver has selected your thread among thousands and blessed you with prosperity.” He waved from my gowns to the ballroom’s blue satin curtains. “The goddess does not choose idly. Now, Abwar rants about the pregnancies, and each web I read is chaotic. Should I worry?”

I tried to think of a reason not to confirm Priest Salkant’s concerns but could not conceive of one. “The women, that is all the pregnant women of Morimound....It could be as the priest said.”

He sighed. “She weaves as
She
wills.”

“I am not yet ready to believe their futures will be snipped short. Morimound may have been infiltrated seven months ago by magic users. Find them, and we save the mothers.” I massaged my temples, trying to loosen my thoughts. “Which nations would benefit from our downfall?”

Priest Salkant gripped his robes over his chest. “The realm of Nagra covets our gem trade. The people of Salarian depend on our rice fields and resent it. We’ve long skirmished with Rhiderac over water diversion for irrigation, and Pyridi’s merchants must pay to travel over our roads to reach eastern markets.”

“If I met with representatives from each nation, then I could determine if any played a role in the happenings here.”

“Could you?
How?”

“I can see guilt, if I know in whom to search.”

“Goddess
be
praised! But you’ll want to see more than the ambassadors, they’re told nothing. We’ll summon members from the power castes of each nation, and I know the perfect pretext. A ball hosted by an elder enchantress.”

“A ball?
In my manor?”

“What other purpose could this room have?”

I bit back the words “wedding reception.” My gaze drew up inlaid columns to the ceiling’s four sloped sides, which formed the underside of a pyramid painted with a day skyscape. The mosaic included a depiction of my floating laboratory; should I ever wed, I would permit the sun to rise in my dream.

“You may arrange a ball in my name,” I said.
“As long as the guests are reputable.”

“They will all be wealthy, I assure you. The event can be held in two months, on the Day of Return.”

I needed a moment to figure out why that would not do. “It must be sooner. The eighth month will mean early labor and likely death for the youngest mothers.
Worse so for the eldest.”