Debt of Bones Read online

  ‘Nothing to be ashamed of, child,’ he said while the Mother Confessor herself was whispering confidentially in his ear.

  But it was something to be ashamed of. The gift hadn’t passed on to her from her mother – it had skipped her.

  The people of Coney Crossing had depended on Abby’s mother. She helped with those who were ill or hurt. She advised people on matters of community and those of family. For some she arranged marriages. For some she meted out discipline. For some she bestowed favours available only through magic. She was a sorceress; she protected the people of Coney Crossing.

  She was revered openly. By some, she was feared and loathed privately.

  She was revered for the good she did for the people of Coney Crossing. By some, she had been feared and loathed because she had the gift – because she wielded magic. Others wanted nothing so much as to live their lives without any magic about.

  Abby had no magic and couldn’t help with illness or injury or shapeless fears. She dearly wished she could, but she couldn’t. When Abby had asked her mother why she would abide all the thankless resentment, her mother told her that helping was its own reward and you should not expect gratitude for it. She said that if you went through life expecting gratitude for the help you provided, you might end up leading a miserable life.

  When her mother was alive, Abby had been shunned in subtle ways; after her mother died, the shunning became more overt. It had been expected by the people of Coney Crossing that she would serve as her mother had served. People didn’t understand about the gift, how it often wasn’t passed on to an offspring; instead they thought Abby selfish.

  The wizard was explaining something to a sorceress about the casting of a spell. When he finished, his gaze swept past Abby on its way to someone else. She needed his help, now.

  ‘What is it you wanted to ask me, Abigail?’

  Abby’s fingers tightened on the sack. ‘It’s about my home of Coney Crossing.’ She paused while the wizard pointed in a book being held out to him. He rolled his hand at her, gesturing for her to go on as a man was explaining an intricacy to do with inverting a duplex spell. ‘There’s terrible trouble there,’ Abby said. ‘D’Haran troops came through the Crossing...’

  The First Wizard turned to an older man with a long white beard. By his simple robes, Abby guessed him as a wizard, too.

  ‘I’m telling you, Thomas, it can be done.’ Wizard Zorander insisted. ‘I’m not saying I agree with the council, I’m just telling you what I found and their unanimous decision that it be done. I’m not claiming to understand the details of just how it works, but I’ve studied it; it can be done. As I told the council, I can activate it. I have yet to decide if I agree with them that I should,’

  The man, Thomas, wiped a hand across his face. ‘You mean what I heard is true, then? That you really do think it’s possible? Are you out of your mind, Zorander?’

  ‘I found it in a book in the First Wizard’s private enclave. A book from before the war with the Old World. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I’ve cast a whole series of verification webs to test it.’ He turned his attention to Abby. ‘Yes, that would be Anargo’s legion. Coney Crossing is in Pendisan Reach.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Abby said. ‘And so then this D’Haran army swept through there and—’

  ‘Pendisan Reach refused to join with the rest of the Midlands under central command to resist the invasion from D’Hara. Standing by their sovereignty, they chose to fight the enemy in their own way. They have to live with the consequences of their actions.’

  The old man was tugging on his beard, ‘Still, do you know if it’s real? All proven out? I mean, that book would have to be thousands of years old. It might have been conjecture. Verification webs don’t always confirm the entire structure of such a thing.’

  ‘I know that as well as you, Thomas, but I’m telling you, it’s real,’ Wizard Zorander said. His voice lowered to a whisper. ‘The spirits preserve us, it’s genuine.’

  Abby’s heart was pounding. She wanted to tell him her story, but she couldn’t seem to get a word in. He had to help her. It was the only way.

  An army officer rushed in from one of the back doors. He pushed his way into the crowd around the First Wizard.

  ‘Wizard Zorander! I’ve just got word! When we unleashed the horns you sent, they worked! Urdland’s force turned tail!’

  Several voices fell silent. Others didn’t.

  ‘At least three thousand years old,’ the First Wizard said to the man with the beard. He put a hand on the newly-arrived officer’s shoulder and leaned close. Tell General Brainard to hold short at the Kern River. Don’t burn the bridges, but hold them. Tell him to split his men. Leave half to keep Urdland’s force from changing their mind; hopefully they won’t be able to replace their field wizard. Have Brainard take the rest of his men north to help cut Anargo’s escape route; that’s where our concern lies, but we may still need the bridges to go after Urdland.’

  One of the other officers, an older man looking possibly to be a general himself, went red in the face. ‘Halt at the river? When the horns have done their job, and we have them on the run? But why? We can take them down before they have a chance to regroup and join up with another force to come back at us!’

  Hazel eyes turned towards the man. ‘And do you know what waits over the border? How many men will die if Panis Rahl has something waiting that the horns can’t turn away? How many innocent lives has it already cost us? How many of our men will die to bleed them on their own land – land we don’t know as they do?’

  ‘And how many of our people will die if we don’t eliminate their ability to come back at us another day! We must pursue them. Panis Rahl will never rest. He’ll be working to conjure up something else to gut us all in our sleep. We must hunt them down and kill every last one!’

  ‘I’m working on that,’ the First Wizard said cryptically.

  The old man twisted his beard and made a sarcastic face. ‘Yes, he thinks he can unleash the underworld itself on them.’

  Several officers, two of the sorceresses, and a couple of the men in robes paused to stare in open disbelief.

  The sorceress who had brought Abby to the audience leaned close. ‘You wanted to talk to the First Wizard. Talk. If you have lost your nerve, then I will see you out.’

  Abby wet her lips. She didn’t know how she could talk into the middle of such a roundabout conversation, but she knew she must, so she just started back in.

  ‘Sir, I don’t know anything about what my homeland of Pendisan Reach has done. I know little of the king. I don’t know anything about the council, or the war, or any of it. I’m from a small place, and I only know that the people there are in grave trouble. Our defenders were overrun by the enemy. There is an army of Midlands men who drive towards the D’Harans.’

  She felt foolish talking to a man who was carrying on a half-dozen conversations all at once. Mostly, though, she felt anger and frustration. Those people were going to die if she couldn’t convince him to help.

  ‘How many D’Harans?’ the wizard asked.

  Abby opened her mouth, but an officer spoke in her place. ‘We’re not sure how many are left in Anargo’s legion. They may be wounded, but they’re an enraged wounded bull. Now they’re in sight of their homeland. They can only come back at us, or escape us. We’ve got Sanderson sweeping down from the north and Mardale cutting up from the southwest. Anargo made a mistake going into the Crossing; in there he must fight us or run for home. We have to finish them. This may be our only chance.’

  The First Wizard drew a finger and thumb down his smooth jaw. ‘Still, we aren’t sure of their numbers. The scouts were dependable, but they never returned. We can only assume they’re dead. And why would Anargo do such a thing?’

  ‘Well,’ the officer said, ‘it’s the shortest escape route back to D’Hara.’

  The First Wizard turned to a sorceress to answer a question she had just finished. ‘I can’t see how we can
afford it. Tell them I said no. I’ll not cast that kind of web for them and I’ll not give them the means to it for no more offered than a “maybe”.’

  The sorceress nodded before rushing off.

  Abby knew that a web was the spell cast by a sorceress. Apparently the spell cast by a wizard was called the same.

  ‘Well, if such a thing is possible,’ the bearded man was saying, ‘then I’d like to see your exegesis of the text. A three-thousand-year-old book is a lot of risk. We’ve no clue as to how the wizards of that time could do most of what they did.’

  The First Wizard, for the first time, cast a hot glare towards the man.

  ‘Thomas, do you want to see exactly what I’m talking about? The spell-form?’

  Some of the people had fallen silent at the tone in his voice. The First Wizard threw open his arms, urging everyone back out of his way. The Mother Confessor stayed close behind his left shoulder. The sorceress beside Abby pulled her back a step.

  The First Wizard motioned. A man snatched a small sack off the table and handed it to him. Abby noticed that some of the sand on the tables wasn’t simply spilled, but had been used to draw symbols. Abby’s mother had occasionally drawn spells with sand, but mostly used a variety of other things, from ground bone to dried herbs. Abby’s mother had used sand for practice; spells, real spells, had to be drawn in proper order and without error.

  The First Wizard squatted down and took a handful of sand from the sack. He drew on the floor by letting the sand drizzle from the side of his fist.

  Wizard Zorander’s hand moved with practised precision. His arm swept around, drawing a circle. He returned for a handful of sand and drew an inner circle. It appeared he was drawing a Grace.

  Abby’s mother had always drawn the square second; everything in order inward and then the rays back out. Wizard Zorander drew the eight-pointed star inside the smaller circle. He drew the lines radiating outward, through both circles, but left one absent.

  He had yet to draw the square, representing the boundary between worlds. He was the First Wizard, so Abby guessed that it wasn’t improper to do it in a different order than a sorceress in a little place like Coney Crossing. But several of the men Abby took as wizards, and the two sorceresses behind him, were turning grave glances to one another.

  Wizard Zorander laid down the lines of sand for two sides of the square. He scooped up more sand from the sack and began the last two sides.

  Instead of a straight line, he drew an arc that dipped well into the edge of the inner circle – the one representing the world of life. The arc, instead of ending at the outer circle, crossed it. He drew the last side, likewise arced, so that it too crossed into the inner circle. He brought the line to meet the other where the ray from the Light was missing. Unlike the other three points of the square, this last point ended outside the larger circle – in the world of the dead.

  People gasped. A hush fell over the room for a moment before worried whispers spread among those gifted.

  Wizard Zorander rose. ‘Satisfied, Thomas?’

  Thomas’s face had gone as white as his beard. ‘The Creator preserve us.’ His eyes turned to Wizard Zorander. ‘The council doesn’t truly understand this. It would be madness to unleash it.’

  Wizard Zorander ignored him and turned towards Abby. ‘How many D’Harans did you see?’

  Three years past, the locust swarms came. The hills of the Crossing were brown with them. I think I saw more D’Harans than I saw locusts.’

  Wizard Zorander grunted his discontent. He looked down at the Grace he had drawn. ‘Panis Rahl won’t give up. How long, Thomas? How long until he finds something new to conjure and sends Anargo back on us?’ His gaze swept among the people around him. ‘How many years have we thought we would be annihilated by the invading horde from D’Hara? How many of our people have been killed by Rahl’s magic? How many thousands have died of the fevers he sent? How many thousands have blistered and bled to death from the touch of the shadow people he conjured? How many villages, towns, and cities has he wiped from existence?’

  When no one spoke, Wizard Zorander went on.

  ‘It has taken us years to come back from the brink. The war has finally turned; the enemy is running. We now have three choices. The first choice is to let him run for home and hope he never comes back to again visit us with his brutality. I think it would only be a matter of time until he tried again. That leaves two realistic options. We can either pursue him into his lair and kill him for good at the cost of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of our men – or I can end it.’

  Those gifted among the crowd cast uneasy glances to the Grace drawn on the floor.

  ‘We still have other magic,’ another wizard said. ‘We can use it to the same effect without unleashing such a cataclysm.’

  ‘Wizard Zorander is right,’ another said, ‘and so is the council. The enemy has earned this fate. We must set it upon them.’

  The room fell again to arguing. As it did, Wizard Zorander looked into Abby’s eyes. It was a clear instruction to finish her supplication.

  ‘My people – the people in Coney Crossing – have been taken by the D’Harans. They have others, too, who they’ve captured. They have a sorceress holding the captives with a spell. Please, Wizard Zorander, you must help me.

  ‘When I was hiding, I heard the sorceress talking to their officers. The D’Harans plan to use the captives as shields. They will use the captives to blunt the deadly magic you send against them, or to blunt the spears and arrows the Midlands army sends against them. If they decide to turn and attack, they plan to drive the captives ahead. They called it “dulling the enemies’ weapons on their own women and children”.’

  No one looked at her. They were all once again engaged in their mass talking and arguing. It was as if the lives of all those people were beneath their consideration.

  Tears stung at Abby’s eyes. ‘Either way all those innocent people will die. Please, Wizard Zorander, we must have your help, otherwise they’ll all die.’

  He looked her way briefly. ‘There is nothing we can do for them.’

  Abby panted, trying to hold back the tears. ‘My father was captured, along with others of my kin. My husband is among the captives. My daughter is among them. She is not yet five. If you send magic, they will be killed. If you attack, they will be killed. You must rescue them, or hold the attack.’

  He looked genuinely saddened. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help them. May the good spirits watch over them and take their souls to the Light.’ He began turning away.

  ‘No!’ Abby screamed. Some of the people fell silent. Others only glanced her way as they went on. ‘My child! You can’t!’ She thrust a hand into the sack. ‘I have a bone—’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone,’ he grumbled, cutting her off. ‘I can’t help you.’

  ‘But you must!’

  ‘We would have to abandon our cause. We must take the D’Haran force down – one way or another. Innocent though those people are, they are in the way. I can’t allow the D’Harans to succeed in such a scheme or it would encourage its widespread use, and then even more innocents would die. The enemy must be shown that it will not deter us from our course.’

  ‘NO!’ Abby wailed. ‘She’s only a child! You’re condemning my baby to death! There are other children! What kind of monster are you?’

  No one but the wizard was even listening to her any more as they all went on with their talking.

  The First Wizard’s voice cut through the din and fell on her ears as clearly as the knell of death. ‘I am a man who must make choices such as this one. I must deny your petition.’

  Abby screamed with the agony of failure. She wasn’t even to be allowed to show him.

  ‘But it’s a debt!’ she cried. ‘A solemn debt!’

  ‘And it cannot be paid now.’

  Abby screamed hysterically. The sorceress began pulling her away. Abby broke from the woman and ran out of the room. She staggered down the stone steps, u
nable to see through the tears.

  At the bottom of the steps she buckled to the floor in helpless sobbing. He wouldn’t help her. He wouldn’t help a helpless child. Her daughter was going to die.

  *

  Abby, convulsing in sobs, felt a hand on her shoulder. Gentle arms pulled her closer. Tender ringers brushed back her hair as she wept into a woman’s lap. Another person’s hand touched her back and she felt the warm comfort of magic seeping into her.

  ‘He’s killing my daughter,’ she cried. ‘I hate him.’

  ‘It’s all right, Abigail,’ the voice above said. ‘It’s all right to weep for such a pain as this.’

  Abby wiped at her eyes, but couldn’t stop the tears. The sorceress was there, beside her, at the bottom of the steps.

  Abby looked up at the woman in whose consoling arms she lay. It was the Mother Confessor herself. But any sense of wonderment was swamped in a sea of despair, and any sense of caution was suddenly pointless. The woman could do her worst, for all Abby cared. What did it matter, what did any of it matter, now?

  ‘He’s a monster,’ she sobbed. ‘He is truly named. He is the ill wind of death. This time it’s my baby he’s killing, not the enemy.’

  ‘I understand why you feel that way, Abigail,’ the Mother Confessor said, ‘but it is not true.’

  ‘How can you say that! My daughter has not yet had a chance to live, and he will kill her! My husband will die. My father, too, but he has had a chance to live a life. My baby hasn’t!’

  She fell to hysterical wailing again, and the Mother Confessor once again drew her into comforting arms. Comfort was not what Abby wanted.

  ‘You have just the one child?’ the sorceress asked.

  Abby nodded as she sucked a breath. ‘I had another, a boy, but he died at birth. The midwife said I will have no more. My little Jana is all I will ever have.’ The wild agony of it ripped through her. ‘And he will kill her. Just as he killed that man before me. Wizard Zorander is a monster. May the good spirits strike him dead!’

  With a poignant expression, the sorceress smoothed Abby’s hair back from her forehead ‘You don’t understand. You see only a part of it. You don’t mean what you say.’