The Temple of Heart and Bone (13 page)

“He wasn’t wrong about the farm,
either. I tried to take shelter there when the storm first hit. It was a
nightmare. The people there must have been tortured before they were allowed to
die. There were bones and skeletons everywhere.” She looked directly at him,
“they didn’t move, though, not like you.” She turned around and looked at the
door and the blood-stained floor. “That’s why I didn’t really think too much
about your bones on the floor.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully.

“I’m not really all that blasé
about death,” she said, trying to explain, “It’s just that when I was at the
farm, I’d seen how some of those people had died. It was dark, and it felt like
I wasn’t alone. I thought to myself, ‘there’s no such thing as spirits,’ which
seems pretty foolish in present company. In the end, I ran out of there as if
all the Fallen were hot on my heels. I tried to gather myself together as I
came the rest of the way here. When I saw your body on the floor, you were in
some light and right out in the open. You seemed to have all your pieces, and
except for the blood, there didn’t seem to be any real sign of your
death.” 

“Not my blood,” he wrote.

“What?”

“I did not die here,” he
explained.

“If it’s not your blood,” she
asked, “whose blood is it?”

“Don’t know,” he answered.

“Um,” she started awkwardly,
“where’s your wife?” She looked around the room suddenly, wondering if someone,
or something, might be hiding. “Do you know?”

“No,” he wrote, “do you?” His
hollow skull focused directly on her face.

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t. Petreus
didn’t say what had happened to you. Once he’d gotten drunk, he just kept
telling me what great people you were… are. He drank a little more than his
usual that night, finally falling asleep, snoring, in his room. You know, now
that I think about it, I’d never seen him drink that much, not even when he’d
challenge me to keep up with him.” She pursed her lips in thought. “He might
know more about you. I was only looking for a place to hide, I wasn’t really
asking about you.”

Drothspar nodded. He looked out
the window at the dimming light. The rain was still falling, but it was not as
heavy as it had been before. He reasoned that the darkness was probably evening
coming. He wasn’t tired, but he had much to think about. He looked at Chance
and noticed the darkness under her eyes. Remembering what she’d said about the
farm, he realized she probably hadn’t slept at all the night before.

“You’re tired,” he wrote.

“No, no,” she answered, stifling
a yawn. He could sense the fear in her. How could she sleep with a dead man
staring at her?

“Could you sleep if I left?” he
asked.

“Where would you go?” Her voice
mixed fear and concern. Her mind wrestled with the ideas of a skeleton stalking
outside the door and having him leave completely.

“Farm,” he wrote.

“Alone?! Now, in the dark, at
night?” Her memories of the farm raised the pitch of her voice. “Do you know
what’s out there?” she asked exasperatedly.

He tilted his head slightly,
gesturing with his hands. He pushed them, palm outwards and fingers down.
Looking at him, she realized he could be asking her to trust him, or just
displaying the bare bones of his hands.

“Well,” she said, unconvinced,
“can I have my dagger back?”

Drothspar got up and walked
across the room. He picked up the dagger by the blade and walked over to
Chance. He knelt on the floor close to her, extending the dagger’s handle
toward her. She looked uncertain for a moment. Fear and trust flickered in the
set of her eyes. Slowly, as if she were offering her hand to a strange dog for
the first time, she reached for the dagger. As she took the handle, Drothspar
opened his hand, and she pulled the weapon away. She looked at Drothspar’s
skull. Her eyes, he thought, were searching for expression where none could be.
He thought he could detect a little more trust in them as they looked, though,
and that was something.

“The tip is bent,” she said,
trying to fill in the silence.

Drothspar nodded his agreement.

“I guess I hit you pretty hard.”

“It’s okay,” he wrote, picking up
his burned stick once more. “No pain for me.”

“I’m glad I didn’t hurt you,” she
offered.

“I’m going to go now,” he
replied. “Will you be okay?”

“Are you coming back?” she asked.

“I am not sure.”

“If you do,” she said, “could you
wait outside until I wake up? I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I’d be able to handle
waking up and staring at a skull.” She blushed. “That sounds terrible, I’m
sorry, this is your home.”

“It’s all right,” he wrote. “If I
come back, I will wait outside. I’d be scared, too.”

“Thank you,” she said gratefully.

“Get some sleep,” he replied,
“and thank you.”

“For what?” she asked.

“For not running, not being
afraid.”

“I’m very afraid,” she smiled
weakly, “and I’m already running. I just don’t know what else to do.”

Drothspar nodded and stood up. He
walked to the door, opened it, and left. He looked back at the cottage once,
noticing the shadows made by her lantern as she moved it about inside. It felt
odd to leave a complete stranger in his home. It felt odd to be only bones and
walk around. He had to think, had to try to put all of this together. The farm
was just an excuse, a reason to walk, to think, and to let the living girl
sleep in peace.

As
he entered the woods, Drothspar noticed that the coming night was not as dark
as the nights before had been. The trees nearby stood out distinctly, the
familiar haze remaining only at a distance. The night cast a deep blue veil on
the forest, leeching all other colors from the palette. Drothspar felt his feet
sink into the cool, wet ground. Though the rain still fell, it was lighter now,
steady. Like a messenger who’s already told his tale, it had lost its sense of
urgency.

The rain soaked deep into his old
robe. He could feel the extra weight of the water, but it did not tire him. He
felt it more as a passing interest than a pressing matter. He realized that he
was making no attempts whatsoever to shield himself from the falling water. He
did not bow his head to protect his face, nor did he hustle for spotty shelter
from tree to tree. The rain, he thought, presented no measure of discomfort.

Eventually, he arrived at the
ruined farm. Darkness filled the sky, so he was certain that morning had not
yet come. How long it had taken him to walk the distance, however, he could not
guess. He carefully picked his way across the grown-over fields and followed
the fences to the buildings. Chance had told him she’d seen bodies in the
cellar of the house and the main barn structure. He decided to take a look into
the barn first.

As she had described, blackened
skeletal remains littered the charred structure. The horrors that had been
inflicted upon the Fern farmstead were scattered everywhere. Something restless
seemed to move in the darkness, something just out of his sight. Different from
the haze he had encountered before, he saw shadows that seemed to both flicker
and roil. There were many of the disturbed shadows, some lingering in the
insubstantial air, others sinking and rising in the dirt like fish in the
nighttime water. They seemed to have no substance, though one appeared to
disturb a hanging chain the way a vagrant breeze touches a wind chime.

He left the barn and stepped into
the house’s cellar. Just as Chance had described, three bodies lie in the dirt.
Three skulls, and other missing members, surrounded the bodies like the
forgotten toys of a spoiled child. These must have been the Ferns. A simple
family mutilated in its own home. Why? Why would
anyone
do this? What
military advantage could there be in the vicious slaughter of a farmstead?
Cruelty had done this, he thought. Evil, in its most basic form, had been here.

Drothspar remembered a question
he had once asked his archpriest, Gathner. The archpriest had assigned him
various readings to complete in his prayer cell. After reading some of the
material, Drothspar felt compelled to approach his master and ask, “What is
evil?” Gathner, who had been reading in his study, put aside his parchments and
looked seriously at his novice.

“You’ve been reading your
assignments?” the archpriest inquired.

“Yes, I have.”

“Why have you asked this
question?” Gathner wanted to know.

“Master,” Drothspar replied, “I
read what you asked me to read. In many of these works, the authors talk about
evil. They say one must be wary of evil. They say one can be tempted by evil.
They say that evil is bad. What they do not clearly say, however, is what
constitutes evil.”

“I see,” Gathner said, nodding
his head. His eyes looked deeply into those of his student. “Why do you want to
know what evil is?”

“It is hard to be wary of, or
avoid, that which is undefined.”

“I see,” the older man said
again. Drothspar had begun to wonder if he had, perhaps, missed the point of
the exercise entirely. His confusion rose immediately in his face, and the
archpriest perceived it there. He answered the novice’s unspoken question. “You
did not fail, my boy, you found the heart of the matter precisely.”

“Thank you, Master,” Drothspar
replied in an uncertain tone.

“What, you have asked, is evil?
The answer, I tell you, is at once very simple and extremely complex. Very
often we
think
we know what evil is, we
think
we could recognize
evil if it walked up and shook our hand. Your question, my son, I can answer in
a single sentence. Understanding it, however, will most likely require the
remainder of your life. Listen, my son, and I will tell you what evil is.”
Looking intently at his student, the archpriest leaned forward as if to divulge
a great secret. Drothspar, caught up in the drama of the moment, leaned forward
as well.

“I am ready, Master,” he
whispered. Gathner cocked his head slightly and gave the novice a wry smile.

“Evil,” he boomed out in a loud
voice, “is putting self above
all
other matters.” Drothspar jumped back
in his chair, surprised by his master’s shout. Gathner smiled at the reaction.
“It’s that simple.”

Drothspar considered the
archpriest’s answer. Evil, he had known from earliest childhood, was the
darkness that threatened from outside the corners of vision. Evil was huge and
menacing, subtle and deceitful. Evil was a monster that could swallow up the
world and sun, or the swindler who cheated a family out of their farm. Evil was
vast, slick, and complex. How could evil
simply
be selfishness? Anyone
could be selfish. The tumult of questions showed clearly on Drothspar’s face.
Gathner waited to let the new wave of ideas and questions settle before
continuing.

“Drothspar,” he said, “let’s look
at some practical examples.”

“Yes Master, please.”

“If a man kills another man,
would you say, ‘this is an evil act?’”

Drothspar’s face hardened at the
question. Blood rose into his cheeks and his eyes turned to stone. He answered
automatically, his voice devoid of emotion. “Yes, Master.”

“Why?”

“Killing is wrong, Master,” he
replied.

“Suppose, for our example, a town
guard comes across a man in the street about to stab an elderly woman for her
purse. The guard has no time to intervene; all he can do is use his own weapon
first to kill the man with the knife. Quickly, he does so. Is the act of the
guard evil?”

“No Master,” the novice replied
grudgingly.

“Why not? He has just killed a
man.”

“Master, he killed the man to
save the woman.”

“Okay. Now, let’s remove the guard
from the example. The old woman is walking to the market. She has the list of
goods she needs to purchase and the money from her pension. Her attacker comes
up from behind. He has watched her for weeks, he knows her patterns. She passes
into a deserted alley to cut some time from her walk. Catching her alone, the
attacker stabs her repeatedly to be certain she won’t cry out. He steals her
money and runs away. Is the act of the attacker evil?”

“Of course, Master!”

“Why?” Gathner looked at the
young man.

Drothspar had almost said, “it
just is,” but held back his tongue. He was uncomfortable with the archpriest’s
choice of subject matter. Didn’t the old man know what Drothspar had been
through prior to his novitiate? With that thought came the answer. The old man
did
know what Drothspar had been through, and had chosen his subject matter
accordingly.

The murder of the old woman was
an act of evil, he was sure of it. But why was it evil? That was the question
he had to answer. Both men had killed. The guard had killed to protect someone.
The attacker had killed to steal money. “Evil is putting self above all other
matters,” Gathner had told him. The guard had killed, but not for himself. The
attacker had killed to steal. He took another being’s life to get something for
himself. The guard could have walked away to keep himself from harm. The woman,
unaware of the attack, had no choice but to die. The attacker had the choice to
kill or to walk away. He had put all other matters aside for personal gain.

“Master, the woman’s killer had
disregarded her right to life in order to take something that wasn’t his. By
your definition, he is evil.”

“All right,” Gathner said, “let’s
continue to alter our example. Let’s say that the old woman is walking to the
market, a man follows her closely, and, unseen by the first two, a guard
follows them both. The guard has been watching the man for some time. He hasn’t
seen the man do anything wrong. The guard, however, has a hunch. From behind,
the guard decides he doesn’t want to wait for the man to strike. Drawing his
own weapon, he plunges it into the man’s back. The man falls to the ground and
dies quickly. The guard finds a knife on the man’s body and little else. Is
this act of the guard evil?”

Drothspar grimaced inwardly. The
old man continued to press the issue close to home. He sighed and considered
the situation. The guard would, most likely, have much experience. If so, he
would be able to “sense” a criminal. Drothspar had done it any number of times
in his past. The man, however, had done nothing criminal. There was nothing
illegal about carrying a knife. Many men and women carried one for work or
defense. The guard had
never
seen the man do anything criminal. His act
wasn’t defense, it was simply murder. Why was it murder, though? Because the
guard became impatient. He wasn’t willing to see what choices the man might
make. The man might have attacked the woman, or he might have gotten cold feet,
or found God. That was it! The guard had stolen the man’s choices.

“Master, the act of the guard in
this case was evil. He stole the man’s ability to make a choice. If the man
were the same man as our other example, he could have chosen to attack the
woman, or to not attack her. By acting prematurely, the guard prevented that choice.
He took a life in order to steal a choice.”

“And what if the man would
definitely have attacked the woman?”

“Master, how could the guard know
what the man would definitely do? If there were some way to gauge that, if the
guard could have been entirely certain that the man was going to kill the
woman, he could have stopped the man and disarmed him. In the first example,
the guard had an immediate need. There was no other way to stop the attack. The
man’s knife was out and his intentions clear. In this example, the man’s knife
was still hidden.” Drothspar looked at the old man seriously. “Was there some
way for the guard to know for certain?”

Gathner shrugged at the novice,
his face emotionless.

“Master, if there can be no
certainty of what the man would do, then what the guard did was wrong. It was
evil.”

“Let’s look at one more example,”
the archpriest said, “one that should be clearer to you. Are the Fallen evil?”

Drothspar looked incredulously at
his Master. Of course the Fallen were evil, he thought to himself. They
were
evil. He paused for a moment and considered that idea. The Fallen, in his mind,
had become synonymous with evil. What, however, made them “evil?” Their acts
were common knowledge, not only to the priesthood, but also the populace in general.
Stories of the Fallen were told to frighten children into obedience. He thought
back to what he knew of the Fallen.

The Fallen had been servants of
the Maker, angels, some people called them. When the Maker had created all
things, He took rest and considered all He had done. Some of His servants,
however, decided to improve on their Master’s work. These servants began a
Creation of their own, creating life without the guidance of their Master.
These angels had brought about a race they called Men.

In the beginning, Men had been
little more than mindless automata. They served the needs of the angels who
created them. The Maker, returning from His rest, asked what His servants had
wrought. The servants who had created Men went quickly into hiding while their
Master surveyed their work. The Maker had brought life to other races, beings
of form and light, of spirit and body. These beings were immortal in body and
soul. Men, however, were mere collections of dust, the scrap of creation. Their
bodies were quite mortal, and they had no souls.

Taking mercy on the abomination
before Him, the Master gave of Himself, and breathed the life of soul into the
errant creation of His servants. The life of these beings, He knew, would be a
great trial, a conflict of dying flesh and living spirit. The Maker returned to
His throne in the Heavens and sent His faithful servants out to bring the
makers of Man before Him.

The servants in hiding resisted
those who were sent to retrieve them. First a few, then, in ever greater numbers,
the disgraced servants fought with those who had been sent to retrieve them. It
was in these battles that the first blood of an immortal servant, the first
blood of an angel had been spilled. Realizing what they had done, the disgraced
servants fought with greater fury. They were certain there would be no mercy
shown them, thus they chose to show no mercy to their former comrades. The
familial War of Angels threatened the very essence of Creation.

Thus it was that a great call
went up among those in battle. The Maker called all of His angels to Himself.
The Faithful returned. The disgraced, those who came to be known as the Fallen,
remained in exile. Yet a third group segregated itself at this time. A group of
angels, swearing loyalty and allegiance to the Maker, turned aside from the
call of their Master. They were certain that, unchecked, the Fallen would
destroy all of Creation, all of their Master’s work. Banding together, they
chose their exile, saying, “Thus we give all that we are, ever were, or shall
be in Love and Defense of the Master!”