The Temple of Heart and Bone (19 page)

Drothspar grasped her arm and
tried to pull her to her feet. He had been afraid to touch her, afraid she
would recoil from the feel of his bone-thin hands. He put aside that fear and
concerned himself only with her safety. If she noticed his hands on her arms,
she didn’t acknowledge it at all. Her breathing was faltering and her muscles
lax under her cloak. He struggled to keep his own balance in the rubble as he
pulled her to her feet. She tried to open her watering eyes once, but they were
so deeply bloodshot that it must have caused her great pain. She closed them
again and her head hung limply from her neck.

Drothspar draped her arm across
his shoulders and put his right arm around her waist. He tried to balance her
weight onto himself. He half-carried and half-dragged Chance through the
streets as quickly as he could. He had to get her to fresh air, if any could be
found in this hellish landscape. He continued to move toward the east, dodging
rubble and pushing through heat and smoke.

Finally they approached what
remained of the east gate. Drothspar could see the blackened ruins of what had
probably been the guard house. The edge of the city was in sight. Chance had
become limp in his arms, no longer moving her feet on her own. Pulling her left
arm tightly over his shoulder, he dragged her past the ruined guard house and
out through the gate. He looked back into the city, certain he was staring into
the mouth of hell, itself. Further to the east, he saw another building, also
destroyed, smoldering in its own ashes. He turned straight north, moving
urgently to put distance between himself and the fires of the city.

He pulled Chance through the
muddy fields around Æostemark. He could sense the heat draining from the air,
along with the ash and smoke. He kept moving to the north, dragging Chance
along with him. He didn’t know what to do other than to get her as far away as
he could. He kept going until he saw an irregularity in the fields before him.
The ground had been ripped apart, as if someone had started pit-mining or
trying to break a foundation for a massive structure. He dragged his companion
as close to the edge as he dared and set her gently on the ground.

He loosened her scarf and opened
each of her eyes gently, briefly, to see what they might tell him. He saw her
pupils change size as he opened each eye, but the whites were filled with red.
Her face was flushed a deep crimson and her hair pressed limply to her face. He
tried to gauge if she was still breathing, first listening for breath from her
nose and mouth. He thought he could hear something, but he couldn’t be sure
with the wind hissing around them. He tried to watch her chest through her
thick robes but gave up on that almost immediately. He had to know if she was
still alive.

He opened her cloak at the
throat. He felt his own chest to remember where his heart had been. No
sensation beat back at his hand, but he thought he sensed the “muscle-memory”
of his hand’s placement. He placed his right hand on her chest at approximately
the same spot, adjusting slightly for decency’s sake. He placed his left hand
over it and prayed for a sense of feeling. It took a few moments, but finally
he could feel something fluttering under his hand.

He brushed her hair from her
forehead and opened her cloak completely to help her cool down. He placed her
pack under her head as he had at the cottage and knelt beside her. He prayed.
He couldn’t breathe for her, he knew. He had no poultice or herb to comfort or wake
her. He wasn’t sure if waking her would be the appropriate thing to do. So he
prayed. He rocked on his knees and shut out every fear and doubt. He called out
to the Maker in His Forge. He put his left hand into hers and his right hand
over his own missing heart. He begged God to heal her, to keep her from being
another victim of this murdered city.

Time was irrelevant to him. His
mind focused so intently on his prayers that he ignored the moving of the sun.
He no longer heard the hissing of the wind. The city of Æostemark died behind
him in oblivion. She couldn’t die. She
wouldn’t
die. He would give
whatever he had, and he did in his silent supplications. He would have cried,
he knew, had he been capable. He continued rocking in his place.

Something was changing, he was
certain. He didn’t stop his prayers. He thought he detected a new sound, but he
shut it out of his mind. Something tapped at his hand and then at his head. He
continued to pray, focusing all his hope and intent on Chance.

He felt something squeeze his
hand. It took a moment for the sensation to sink through his meditation. He
looked down to see her hand holding his. Her eyes opened slowly, and she smiled
weakly at his shrouded face.

Drothspar
looked down at the smiling young woman. He watched the light rain fall across
her face. He felt it tapping at his own head and hand, but that didn’t really
matter.

Chance was smiling.

In the days since he’d awakened,
he’d worried about his wife, he’d worried about what he’d become, he’d worried
about what to do with his new
life
. Looking down into grateful,
bloodshot eyes, he stopped worrying. He knew the moment wouldn’t last, it never
did. Time moved on and worries caught up. He always wondered why.

Chance struggled to rise to a sitting
position, and he reached down to help her. He drew out his tablet and tried to
shield it from the falling rain.

“How are you?” he wrote.

“I’m—,” she coughed, struggling
to speak. “I’m going to be okay.” She paused, taking air in deep breaths. “I think.”

“I was worried.”

“So was I,” she laughed weakly.
“Don’t make me laugh,” she begged him.

“I wasn’t trying to,” he wrote.

“I know,” she said, laying her
hand on his.

She found it easier to touch his
hand the second time. It was hard and rough, cool as the autumn air, and wet
from the falling rain. She had been afraid to touch him since they had met. She
was intellectually and instinctively repulsed by the idea of touching something
dead. She intuitively felt he was self-conscious about what he was.

Still, words were not enough. She
could feel the smoke in her nose, throat, and lungs. He had brought her out
into fresher, cooler air. He had carried her when her own legs had failed. He
had stayed with her when she needed him.

She hoped he wouldn’t be offended
by her touch. He had risked himself for her sake. She felt that she could take
the chance of offending him. Sometimes, chances were what it was all about. If
you don’t take the chance, you’ll never know the answer. That’s what she’d told
her friends at school, anyway.

Drothspar didn’t recoil from her
touch. He appreciated how much it must have taken on her behalf. Once again he
marveled at her courage. He smiled a phantom smile back at her, remembering a
moment later that she couldn’t see it, even if she could see his face.

“Thank you,” he wrote simply.

“You’re welcome,” she rasped in
reply, squeezing his hand gently.

The rain began to fall more
heavily, soaking deep into their clothes. Drothspar’s tablet ran with water,
making it impossible to mark with his charred stick. He looked at Chance and
made two different gestures. First he straightened his hand horizontally, then
pushed it down, as if making something flat. Chance watched him curiously. Next
he pointed off to the west, then switched back and forth between the two.

“Do I want to stay or leave?” she
asked.

He nodded.

“I don’t want to go back into the
city, that’s certain.” She looked at the muddy field around her. “Staying here
won’t help. I suppose we should start heading back.” She tried to get to her
feet but her hands slipped out from under her. Drothspar reached down and
helped her to stand. As she stood, she noticed the large open pit behind her.

“What’s that?” she asked,
shielding her eyes from the rain with her hand.

Drothspar shook his head from
side to side.

Slowly, Chance walked to the
edge, stepping carefully to avoid falling. She turned her head quickly from the
sight and walked several steps away. Drothspar approached the edge. He saw the
outlines of countless bodies impressed into the earth. Even the heavy rains had
not been enough to wash the hard packed dirt smooth. Puddles had formed in the
casts of bodies, creating liquid representations of the long-dead. Tattered
bits of clothes and an odd assortment of broken bones littered the visible
dirt. Not one complete corpse remained. Drothspar looked out at the length and
breadth of the pit. He was certain he could have fit four of his cottages
side-by-side, with room to spare. He could probably have added another if it
weren’t for the large, old, building stones deep in the far end. Why bury
blocks?

Chance was looking at the woods
with a worried eye and shivering. Drothspar backed away from the pit and joined
her several feet away. He pointed toward the west and she nodded her head.

The sun had hidden itself behind
the clouds and rain swept down over the muddy plains of Æostemark. The city
smoldered in ruins behind them, coughing black smoke into the lead-gray sky.
Their original purpose for visiting Æostemark sank down into its streets in mud
and sodden ashes.

Before nightfall, they reached
the edge of the forest. They walked as far as they could in the remaining
light. Drothspar found a semi-dry spot for Chance to rest. As she settled in to
sleep, he took the bottle she used for water and filled it with the run off of
leaves. He spent the night harvesting water and wondering about the destruction
of Æostemark.

Someone had used the city. They
had looted it of its dead—but not all of them. Why leave anything behind? Why
run off with any at all? He was sure of one thing—his awakening was not an
accident. Somehow, he’d been affected by the ritual in Æostemark. Who could do
that? Who would—?

Cool water ran down the back of
his hand. The bottle had filled to overflowing and refused hold any more. He
poured out enough to tap the cork into place. Worrying wouldn’t answer his
questions. He had done all that he could for the moment. This day, he thought,
was over. It was time to lay it to rest.

The next day dawned cold. Rain
fell as a mist through the bare limbs of the forest. Drothspar waited for
Chance to wake up and presented her with the bottle he had filled. She drank
gratefully, still parched from the smoke and heat of Æostemark. Having brought
little with them, there was little to pack as they left their night’s
encampment.

Although she never mentioned it,
Drothspar was almost certain that the young woman’s food had run out. He tried
a couple of times to ask her, but she waved him off nonchalantly. She told him
she was fine and that her stores would hold out for a little while longer.

They made time as best they
could, weaving their way among the trees. After several hours, they came upon
the eastern shore of the lake. Chance took in a great breath of the humid air.
Her mood improved as she looked out over the water, grateful for the vast open
space. Drothspar felt better at the lake, as well. He had many good memories of
his life there, and he, also, found comfort in the open views around them.
Their passage through the forest had been nervous. Shadows, real and imagined,
had lingered behind every bare tree. The dead of Æostemark had gone somewhere.
The question was, where?

Drothspar and Chance reached the
cottage shortly after nightfall. They stumbled along in the darkness, eager to
reach the sturdy little home. The cottage was exactly as they had left it,
aside from a collection of leaves that had blown in through the broken windows.
Drothspar set to work building a fire while Chance hung her cloak up to dry.

“How are you feeling?” he asked
her once they had settled.

“Better,” she replied hesitantly.
The flush had disappeared from her checks and her voice had lost its rasp.
Drothspar looked at her closely. Her eyes had a slightly vacant cast and it had
taken her a moment to answer his written question. He had seen that look many
times.

“How long have you been out of
food?” he wrote. Her eyes flashed involuntarily to his face before she casually
moved them away. A look of consternation creased her brow as she felt her own eyes
give her away.

“Since the night before last,”
she admitted, “the night before we reached Æostemark.”

Drothspar nodded slowly.

“I didn’t think it would matter
at first,” she explained, “we were so close to Æostemark. I thought we’d just
find food there.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he
asked her.

“At first, like I said, I didn’t
think it would matter. After we got out of the city, it really
didn’t
matter to me for a while. Once I started to cough all that smoke out of my
lungs, I wasn’t all that hungry. By the time we settled in for the night, I
didn’t think there was much we could do about it.”

Drothspar nodded again. “Why
didn’t you tell me today?”

“I’m okay,” she insisted with a
hint of steel in her voice. “I didn’t want you to worry, and besides, I can take
care of myself.” Her eyes narrowed and her brow creased slightly. “I got here
by myself,” she pointed out. She paused seeming to consider something,
something that remained just out of focus. “You’ve done so much for me
already,” she continued, “I didn’t want you running off like some kind of
servant to try and fetch me food. You’re your own person, and you have things
you need to worry about, and they don’t always have to be me.” She looked at
him seriously. “Like I said, I can take care of myself, too. I really don’t
even feel all that hungry just now.” She started rubbing her temples and leaned
forward in her chair. “This is really annoying,” she said mostly to herself.

“What is?” he asked, hoping she
didn’t mean his questions.

“I know I’ve already said
enough,” she explained, “too much, more than likely. But I still keep talking.
I feel like I’ve been drinking or something.”

“It’s from the hunger,” he wrote.
“When the priests where I studied would go into fasting, the first couple of
days were filled with chatter. At first I thought it was simply to keep their
minds off the hunger. When I started fasting, I felt the same way, though. I
would talk or listen to anyone. Shortly after that, I remember, I started
sleeping less and less. I think my body was trying to encourage me to find
something to eat instead of staying asleep.”

“Really,” she said with interest,
“what else happens?”

“Well,” he started, “after about
three days, at least for me, the call of nature became quite urgent.”

“I’m not sure I understand…”

“My body purged itself,” he
explained delicately. “Whatever had remained in me decided it really needed to
get out… fast.” He was momentarily grateful that he couldn’t blush.”

“Oh my,” she said, comprehending.
“Three days, you say?”

“For me, I’m not sure about the
others.”

“How long did you fast for?”

“I think the longest I managed
was about seven days,” he wrote.

“What was it like?” she asked.

“In the last couple of days,” he
explained, “the shadows started to move. I was anxious, but I didn’t have the
energy to be nervous. I was tired.”

“And you didn’t eat anything that
whole time?”

“No food,” he wrote, “only water
and tea. Some of the older priests took bread after sundown, but I was young. I
suppose I was curious, too, to see if I could actually do it.”

“Did you fast often?”

“There are smaller fasts in the
church year, a day or so here or there. Fasting for extended periods of time
can be very dangerous, so it was usually reserved for personal purity, or the
occasional challenge.”

“What do you mean by
‘challenge?’” she asked.

“Unmarried priests usually live
on church grounds, in what we call ‘chapter houses.’ It’s not uncommon for one
priest to go into fasting in the house and be joined by several others. The
‘challenge’ is unspoken, and it’s never formal. In truth, it’s frowned upon by
the archpriests. It isn’t very useful to have your entire staff of priests
wandering around with vacant eyes.

“Many priests,” he continued, “do
their best to tempt each other with foods while they’re fasting. Some will slip
bits of bread or crackers under doors. Others, if they have the chance, will go
so far as to cook something savory and parade it past a competitor’s prayer
cell. They cook often for the hungry of the city, but it’s only during fasting
that the meals take detours through the living quarters.”

“What a very strange thing,” she
exclaimed.

“Probably,” he admitted, “it’s
fun to watch though.”

“Did you ever do those things?”

“No,” he replied. “I think I took
myself too seriously when I was still at the chapter. The Good Maker knows I’ve
had parades of dishes outside my cell, though.”

“They tempted you a lot, did
they?”

Drothspar nodded. “There were
plenty of priests who… well, they didn’t really like me. They actually said
some pretty scandalous things about me, or so I’m told. I wasn’t very happy
about that, but I suppose I understood. We were taught to keep forgiveness ever
present in our thoughts. It wasn’t always easy, I admit. I had some great
daydreams about going into town to buy up sweet pastries in retaliation. I
never did, though.” He paused and looked at his sleeve, blackened by all the
words he’d wiped from his slate. “I suppose I did take it out on some of them,”
he admitted.

“How?” she asked.

“We would have martial training
sessions in the common area. The older, more experienced priests would instruct
us in the use of swords and other weapons. They never gave us real ones for
practice. Probably because they were afraid we’d hack each other to bits.
Instead, they gave us wooden swords. I was young and agile, strong and eager. I
had also been a member of the city guard prior to being a novice. I wouldn’t
say I had received the training of a soldier, mind you, but I had a fair amount
of experience with weapons. I sent many of my brother novices and priests
limping and moaning to their beds.”