Brood of Bones (36 page)

I wept and bled as they shoved me into the carriage. On the ride across the Island District, I slept and repaired my ears, even
Attracting
some of the blood back into the wound.

We arrived at the manor that had belonged to Salkant of the Fate Weaver. The follower forced me into Kishala’s windowless room. Darkness filled the chamber now, and they threw an unlit candle after me then slammed the door shut. I winced at the “snick” of the lock.

The follower might have assumed I could light the candle with my magic; as I could not, I would have to wait in darkness. Sightless, I felt as if I hung suspended in a night without stars, and the thought of such darkness reminded me of the Lord of the Feast.

I had found the Soultrapper for him, given him the key to slaying all the city’s women in one moment. I feared he would do so tonight, and I would hear the shrieking laughter of his children slaughtering in the streets.

“Great Weaver,” I whispered to the darkness, “please tell me this is not our fate. Please!”

Night Forty-One, Third Trimester

I wondered if I would know when the death began. My general education course on magic had claimed that proximity to Feasting produced a sense of foreboding, yet I felt so distressed and disconsolate now that I was unsure I would be able to distinguish a difference.

Enclosed on all sides by blackness, I began to wonder if the downpour continued outside; the
savanna rivers
might overflow; a flood might even now sweep up the streets. Half the city could be submerged, and I would never know it.

I felt I was the last person alive, that I would be left here and forgotten, my skeleton found years later in a pile of twenty-seven gowns.

Worst of all, I imagined that this was what it would be like to have my soul imprisoned. Blackness all around, the nothing smothering me and choking me and my every effort to escape would only strengthen the Soultrapper.

Deepmand would be experiencing this, or worse. The Soultrapper had drawn a glyph on him, before he died, and now he would struggle to free himself from his withered corpse, for as long as the Soultrapper lived. He had died because of my uncertainty and inadequacy.

“If I live,” I said to the emptiness, “if I survive and Morimound does, too, Deepmand, I swear I will provide for your family. I will take them into my home and treat your children as my own.
Even the bastard.”

I saw scant possibility of that. If the city survived the night and Priest Abwar gathered the city guards to kill the Soultrapper, then every last Bone Orb inside a woman would explode.

My hands beat against the wall, and I wept. Mucus dribbled over my lips. I had no ability to save my city, and I saw now that I never had, not when confronted with men whose magic gave them the power of gods. I had spent my life studying a magic that did nothing of use, leaving me without means to defend myself or anyone else.

The squeak of sliding metal surprised me, and a rectangle of light expanded across the floor; the aperture at the base of the door had opened, and a bowl of water and rice slid through.

“Has the night passed?” I tripped over my dresses to bend down to the opening. “Is it
day
?”

The aperture closed, throwing me back into darkness. I had no stomach for eating, yet I felt the mounting pressure to relieve my bladder. I stumbled around searching for a chamber pot for what seemed an hour. I could have retreated into my dream to recall where it was, yet too great
a lethargy
bowed me down for me to wish to utilize the memory mirror, or anything else.

I forced myself to eat the rice,
then
I used the bowl as a chamber pot. As I rose from squatting, my gowns proved too cumbersome, causing me to tip the full bowl over and spill its noisome contents. The room stank with my shame.

“These horrid gowns!”

I tore at them, wishing to be rid of their swelter. Their silk mired my every step, forcing me to use a cane, and I wanted to be rid of it all.

“I won’t die in these wretched gowns!”

Try as I might, I could not tear the enchanted fabric, nor could I untie their labyrinth of laces. I lay sweating and defeated, in drifts of velvet.

Of course, I reminded myself I could not afford to remove the gowns, especially not now. They protected me as much as mail armor protected a soldier. Underneath them, I was simply a sleepy girl who could die to any scimitar blade. With them on, everyone saw me as an enchantress: Men feared me, and even the Soultrapper knew he needed my skills. No, I could never be without my gowns.

Light flooded the room, and through blinking eyes, I saw that an acolyte had entered. He winced at the smell and at my disheveled state. Then he provided documentation on clay tablets of the condition of the Flood Wall.

The acolyte’s candle illuminated the room: planters
capsized,
ferns and moss browning. Books were strewn from shelves. Dead fish floated in one of several bowls, their water clouded. The Soultrapper’s follower must have vandalized Kishala’s sanctuary during the kidnapping.

I reviewed the acolyte’s notations, asked him a few questions then bid him to leave. He set parchment, ink, and quill on the table. Then he spoke.

“Enchantress, they say the Ever Always killed the women in the Bazaar. All across the city, families are making sacrifices. Some women are arranging their death rites.”

“Anlash Niklia killed those women.”

He grimaced but nodded. “I suspected that. The acolytes of the Fate Weaver refuse to take any action, but the rest of us are fortifying the Island.”

“Priest Abwar leads you?”

“He is fevered, from a cut on his hand.”

“Unfortunate,” I said.

“Should we attack Sunchase Hall? The traitor Anlash has the priest’s daughter hostage.”

“Killing him would not benefit Morimound.”

“Flawless, what should we do? If you escape, could we count on you to lead us?”

“You cannot count on me for anything.”

The acolyte left with the candle, returning the room to darkness.

It mattered not. By feel, I spread the parchment then wrote the plan in my dream. The Flood Wall could hardly be rebuilt with the waters already high, yet temporary barriers had a chance of preventing the flood from spreading if one diverted some of the water through the sewer system.

I outlined a plan to reconstruct the wall during the following dry season.

Awaking, I waited for the acolyte to retrieve my work. The door stayed shut, the room black. My gowns prevented me from pacing, and when I resorted to banging a fist against the door, I still garnered no response.

My thirst convinced me that the majority of the day had passed. Dipping my hand into a fishbowl to lap up water would be decidedly unladylike and unsanitary, yet I did it anyway. I wondered if night had fallen again and if the Lord of the Feast had struck; I imagined myself locked in this room, the last person alive in Morimound. The weeks of my starvation would be agonizing.

I hoped Maid Janny fared better than I, wherever the lepers had taken her. Doubtless, they only held her to stop her from blathering about Tethiel.

“Please,” I said, “let her inconsequence and unappealing figure save her from harm.”

The door opened in a burst of light. A man spoke, and the voice flashed a bolt of recognition through me.

“Leave the candle on the table, my heart.”

A guard left the light, and the door shut behind Lord of the Feast. We were alone.

Day Forty-Two, Third Trimester

The Lord of the Feast wore the robes of an acolyte, and for the first time, I saw him without his face powdered. I still recognized him instantly by his slumped shoulders, impassive expression, and crooked fingers. The brand of the black triangle did not show on his brow; he must have hid the stigma under a flesh-colored paste.

I wanted to scream, to throw a book at him, to weep, and to cower. My body refused to perform any of those actions, and I did no more than stare into his metallic-blue eyes.

He returned my gaze but did not speak.

I wrested back control of my breathing and managed to wet my tongue enough to form words.

“What have you done with Maid Janny?”

“She is safe.”

“Is she? Is Spellsword Deepmand? He died while you loitered.
While you did nothing.
Why? Why drag this out beyond mercy?”

“Soultrappers favor decoys. Now that I have seen him cast magic, I am convinced.”

“Yet still you wait.”

“The waters have delayed my Feasters.”

I felt insignificant, no more than a colorful caterpillar. The Lord of the Feast could crush me with a thought, and now I believed he would feel no qualm in doing so.

“Did you always know,” I whispered, “that killing the Soultrapper would kill the women?”

“I knew that once I began Feasting, I could not stop myself,” he said, toneless as ever. “Understand
,
your city is delicious.”

His fingers clenched as far as they could and he swallowed, his tongue running over his upper lip. Closing his eyes, he took two long breaths before speaking.

“So many worried for their unborn children that every breath tasted like strawberries and cream.
Their uncertainty for the future was salted pork, frying on the pan.
Now that the deaths in the Bazaar have seasoned their fear—Ahh!”

Saliva strung between his teeth as his mouth stretched into the first full expression I had seen on his face: hunger.

“Fear is a banquet, tables set on every street, boards burdened with steak broiled in wine and dribbling with juices, with mutton roasted with truffles, with buttered carrots and enough baked pies to feed a thousand of my children.”

I began to shiver and my own stomach clenched in horror.

“The Soultrapper is a snake on the table,” he said, “and only with his death may the banquet begin in safety. When the women die I’ll devour their terror and flood the city with nightmare. I will be the Seventh Flood.”

My heart beat twice before the gravity of his words hit me: He planned to kill not only the women but their husbands as well, and their sons, fathers, uncles, nephews, and grandfathers. This was the doom predicted by Salkant of the Fate Weaver,
the prophesy
of “within his lifetime” off by mere days. And Sri had dreamed of a flood without water.

Tears burned my face as I stomped toward him, not realizing what I intended but with my fists
raised
. Before I reached him, I tripped over my gowns and collapsed weeping.

“Not tonight,” he said, “but perhaps the night after. No matter what you see, no matter what you hear and feel, do not believe it. These walls will keep you from fleeing into greater danger, and you should live to see daybreak. I will ensure the survivors find you.”

“There—there will be survivors?”

“Past floods drowned all but the wealthiest in the Island District. I find it poetic that the Seventh Flood will start on high and sweep downward, killing all but the poorest of Stilt Town. The survivors will need leadership in the time ahead, and you will govern them. That is my gift to you.”