The Temple of Heart and Bone (43 page)

“Would you mind terribly if we
settled ourselves to chat, perhaps around a nice campfire?” She looked at the
struggling Vae and dagger-wielding Chance. “I’m certain we’d all be more
comfortable.”

“We can go back to the camp,”
Cardalan agreed, “but we can’t have a campfire, we’re too close to the enemy.”

“If that’s all you’re worried
about, Captain, I can take care of it for you.” Kitti smiled at him brightly.
“Lead the way,” she invited.

Drothspar, Chance, Cardalan and
Kitti walked the short distance to the center of the camp. Vae, still
struggling, was escorted back to the camp and bound to a tree several feet away
from the others. Her face was flushed an angry red and her lips were curled
back away from her teeth. Her eyes, however, showed a crack in her certainty.

Although Cardalan repeatedly
informed Kitti that they could not build a fire, she insisted she would not
talk unless they gathered up “a nice bunch” of dry wood for her. Scowling,
Cardalan ordered his men to collect some wood, quietly stipulating that it should
all be as thick as his forearm around. He reasoned that he harder the wood was
to light, the more chance he’d have to put it out before anyone near Æostemark
could notice it.

Kitti, however, was pleased by
the large chunks of wood the soldiers brought back to her. After it had been
arranged into a neat pyramid shape, she invited everyone to gather close.
Drothspar sat beside her on a fallen log, and Chance settled in on his other
side. She eyed Kitti suspiciously, still upset over the attack on Drothspar.
Cardalan sat on the ground on the opposite side of the firewood from Kitti.
Sergeant Glement, Corporal Kelton, and a few soldiers who were not on guard
duty formed a half-circle on the side facing Æostemark. Cardalan stirred
uneasily. He watched Kitti nervously as she approached the firewood.

“We can’t have a fire,” he warned
her again seriously. “We’re too close to Æostemark.”

She winked at him.

Cardalan’s eyes widened in
surprise and he readied himself to jump on the fire and stomp it out. His men
were poised similarly, like a group of springs about to leap out of a broken
clock.

Kitti knelt before the fire and
closed her eyes. Her face was lovely, peaceful, calm. She extended her right
hand over the wood and spoke very softly.

“Thank you,” she said and the
wood beneath her hand crackled. It took several moments for fire to show
itself. It was not what anyone, except Kitti, had expected.

Drothspar watched as the shadows
of the firewood shifted and moved. He swiveled his head around to see what
light had changed to make the shadows shift. No clouds covered the moon and the
stars glittered brightly as ever. He turned his gaze back to the firewood and
stared.

It took several moments for him
to see, to understand. It wasn’t the shadows that were moving—the flames of the
fire were black! As the black flames licked higher and deeper into the wood, a
gentle, dark blue glow illuminated the area of their circle and no further.
Drothspar heard the collective gasps as others began to perceive the new type
of fire before them. He also noticed a few of them huddling closer. Apparently,
he thought, it was giving out some heat as well. A few moments later, he felt
the warmth himself. It was a good warmth, neither too hot nor tepid. For lack
of a better word, he thought, it was perfect.

“It’s a very lovely fire,” he
said to their new guest.

“Thank you!” she said brightly.
“My brother showed it to me.” The bright look fell from her face and she
sighed.

“Yes,” Cardalan said, “it’s a
very nice fire.” He was relieved that she hadn’t created a bright glowing
bonfire and trying very hard to remember his manners. “Could you tell us
now
what you’re doing here, Kitti? Please?”

Kitti’s face lit up as she heard
Cardalan call her name.

“You called me by my name again!
Well, my new name. It’s been so long since anyone’s called me anything. Well,
anything nice, anyway.” She smiled at Cardalan. “‘Kitti,’” she said, trying the
name out again. “Yes, I think I like it very much.”

“That’s wonderful,” Cardalan
said, trying to remain calm. “Do you think you could tell us why you’re here?”

“You really are on about that,
aren’t you?” she asked. “Oh, all right. If it’s that important to you, there’s
really no great mystery about it. Something is going to happen very soon, and
I’ve decided I want to be a part of it.” She paused, considering. “Well, I
suppose it’s more that I’ve realized that I
need
to be a part of it, but
I
want
to, as well.” She smiled at Cardalan as if she had explained
everything to his satisfaction.

“That’s it?” he asked incredulously.
“Something’s going to happen? Do you know
what
is going to happen?”

Kitti was taken aback by
Cardalan’s attitude. She blinked her green eyes at him and tilted her head.
Cardalan, a man who hadn’t much considered women since losing his wife, was
shaken, himself, by Kitti’s look. Her beauty astounded him. Kitti smiled and
answered his question.

“Well, yes, I do know what’s
going to happen tomorrow.” She smiled again. “And, no, I really don’t.”

“Tomorrow?” Cardalan exclaimed.

“Yes, tomorrow. Oh, I see! Well,
I guess you’re right. Technically, today
is
tomorrow.”

“Would you care to explain
further?” Cardalan asked, exasperated.

“Well,” Kitti began, “okay. You
see, days go from midnight to midnight, and since it’s now past midnight, it’s
no longer today, it’s tomorrow. Which is to say today.”

Cardalan groaned and sunk his
face into his hands. Drothspar was grateful that his face couldn’t betray his
phantom smile.

“I think what the Captain means, Kitti,”
Drothspar said, “is could you explain what’s going to happen tomorrow—today,
rather?”

“I could try,” Kitti replied,
“but you see I wouldn’t be completely accurate. Since it’s in the future, it
really hasn’t happened yet—”

“Are you trying to say that you
can see the future?” Chance interrupted her. “Like some kind of
fortune-teller?”

Kitti turned her eyes on Chance,
considering the question. Chance’s eyes softened under that gaze, she was only
slightly less affected than Cardalan had been.

“Ah!” Kitti declared. “I think I
understand your question now. ‘Fortune-teller!’” she said, as if that had
explained her thought process. “No, I’m not a fortune-teller and I don’t see
into the future in the way that you mean. Let me see if I can explain.

“Let’s imagine a mountain, not
too high mind you, and on top of this mountain is a man. This man is
very
thirsty, but the only water is at the bottom of the mountain. Now, if you come
to this scene, and you know that the man is thirsty, and you know that the
water is at the base of the mountain, you know that the man will come down.

“Now, let’s imagine that you
don’t know the man is thirsty and that you don’t know the water is at the base
of the mountain. You may even not know the man is there at all. The person who
knows of the man and the water can potentially tell you what will happen. The
person who doesn’t know of either, well, won’t really have that potential.”

“Okay,” Chance said, not quite
convinced. “You’re saying we’re heading for water…”

“In a manner of speaking, yes, I
suppose so. You see, the thing is, there are many ways for the man to get to
the water, and there are many things he can do when he gets to it. He could
stumble and fall along the way. He could even decide to stay where he is, to wrestle
with his thirst. You’d be surprised how many people prefer to make their way to
the water by the hardest path they can find. I’m not sure who they think
they’re fighting. They really don’t agitate anyone but themselves.” She
shrugged.

“Well,” Chance said, “if you know
about the mountain, and we’re the man, and tomorrow—sorry, today—is the water,
why don’t you just tell us what is going to happen?”

Kitti sighed. She looked at
Chance, her eyes filled with compassion and regret.

“I wish that I could, Sasha, I
wish that I could. It really isn’t quite as simple as that. My man, mountain
and water were just an example for you. You see, I can see quite a bit farther
than you can, and quite a bit more—”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not trying to be insulting,
Sasha,” Kitti explained, picking up on Chance’s tone. “Please try to take this
in the manner of an explanation, and not as any sort of slight or abuse.
Imagine again that you were standing at the base of our mountain looking up.
Now, you can see the mountain, and the trees, and perhaps even the man at the
top. You can see various paths to the top and various ways the man could climb
down.

“Now, imagine that you were
smaller, much smaller than you are now. Imagine that you were so small that you
were no taller than a caterpillar. Now, what would happen if you were to try to
look at the mountain again? It has become so much larger than you, the
distances so much greater. You might not even see the mountain. It might be
hidden behind a tree or a good-sized rock—”

“Are you saying we’re some kind
of worms to you?!” Chance exploded.

“You see!” Vae yelled from her
tree. “I told you! I
told
you!”

Kitti looked sadly at Vae and
then at Chance.

“No, you’re not worms to me,
Sasha, you’re just different. I didn’t say ‘worm,’ I said ‘caterpillar.’ Don’t
forget, caterpillars turn into one of Creation’s most beautiful creatures. It
isn’t the form that’s different, Sasha, it’s the perception. We perceive our
own truths of the world, and it is from these perceptions that we
form
the very substance of our reality. I see more and I see further because I
perceive
differently than you do. This form that you see me in is not truly what I am.”

“What are you then?” Cardalan and
Chance asked together.

“I wish I could show you, Dears,
but it is your limitation that place
me
in this form. You see me as your
perception
allows you.”

“What does that mean?” Chance
asked with a hint of exasperation.

“There is more to my form than
you see. I’m not hiding it from you, though. As with the rock and the mountain,
it’s being obscured by your perception. In this case, what you see of my form
is the rock, behind it lies the mountain.”

Everyone stared at her.

As your friend Drothspar saw, I
can also change my form slightly—”

“Slightly?” Drothspar interrupted.
“You were a cat.”

“Yes,” she smiled at him,
“slightly. I am rather good at it though, don’t you think?”

“Rather, yes,” he agreed, smiling
his phantom smile.

“Thank you,” she replied. “That’s
a very charming smile you have there.”

“You—you saw that? How could you
see that?”

“You saw him smile?” Chance
asked, a hint of jealousy in her voice.

“Yes,” Kitti nodded. “Like I say,
we perceive things in different ways.” She turned to Chance. “There is more to
your friend Drothspar than you see.”

Chance stared at Kitti, lost for
words.          

“Honestly,” Kitti said, “what do
you suppose is holding him together? Why do you think I knew that your friend
Vae couldn’t hurt him?” She looked at them all, amazed by their lack of
comprehension. She faced Drothspar.

“There is
more
to you,
Drothspar, than a collection of bones.” Her voice, which had been lighthearted
since they had met her, took on a deep, serious tone. “Remember that.” She
looked meaningfully at the finger Petreus had removed from his hand. “I think
you’ve experienced some of what I speak.” She lifted her gaze to his face. “I
think you are experiencing something of it now. Something is different for you,
isn’t it? Something that you thought empty has been filled, something that you
thought lost has somehow been found…”

“How did you know?” Drothspar
asked in a quiet whisper that chilled even those who were accustomed to his
voice. Kitti’s eyes glowed with a sad, longing compassion. Drothspar nodded his
head.

“What?” Chance asked in a small voice.
“What is it?”

“Li is here,” Drothspar said. “Li
is here, in Æostemark.”

While
Kitti continued to talk, Drothspar left the campfire and sat alone, away from
the others. He had been tied to Li by an unseen bond. He had felt it when they
were at the tree-line. Li was in Æostemark.

There was something different
about the feeling, something askew. He could feel her, but it felt as if it
wasn’t really her. He knew the most logical reason that the feeling was
different; although the word “logical” made him want to laugh—and cry. He was
dead.

Worse yet, if Li was in
Æostemark, she was dead, too.

As small as it had been, as long
as he hadn’t known, there had always been hope that Li was still alive. Why
wouldn’t she be? Perhaps she’d lost her memory, forgotten who she was and where
she was from. He’d heard of people like that. He’d heard of soldiers who had
been hit in the head and forgotten everything about themselves.

She was close. She was in
Æostemark. Drothspar remembered the ranks of dead around the ruined city. They
hadn’t seen a single living person. The truth of it struck him in his phantom
stomach—cold, hard, empty. Li was dead.

But he felt her! If he could feel
her, he reasoned, she couldn’t be dead as they were supposed to be. She could
be like him. Would she be like him? Would she be anything of herself at all?

There were some things he’d have
to take care of first. There were things now that he didn’t want to risk,
didn’t want to lose. He had lost so much because of his own mistakes seven
years earlier. He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—let that happen again. But he would need
help.

Sometime later, Drothspar
approached Corporal Kelton. He handed the soldier something wrapped in a cloth
and spoke to the man seriously. Tears ran down the corporal’s cheeks and he
started to protest. Drothspar spoke to him again, softly, soothingly. He
squeezed Kelton’s shoulder gently and shook his hand. Drothspar glanced once at
Kitti, who was, herself, speaking seriously with Vae. There was a strange look
in Vae’s eyes. It was a look that Drothspar had not yet seen there—it was weak,
and it was struggling. It was hope.

Kitti paused for a moment and
looked across the camp at Drothspar. She nodded her head and raised her hand in
a small wave.

“Good luck, Drothspar. May the
Maker be with you in all the dark places you must go.”

“Thank you, Kitti,”
he thought back. He felt a warm
touch in his mind as she heard him say her name.

“Miss,” Corporal Kelton said to
Chance.

“Yes?” she replied to the corporal.
She stared at him for a second before her eyes went hard, then wide. “What?”
she said quickly, “what is it?”

“Miss, my Lord Drothspar asked me
to give you this,” he said, handing her the cloth-wrapped bundle.

“Dear Sasha,” began the letter
etched into the stone of his tablet. “I want to thank you, Dear Girl, for all
that you’ve done for me, for all the time you’ve spent with me, for everything
that I can name and not name. When I was alone, you gave me friendship. When I
was outcast and unclean, you gave me your hand. When I was dead, you—
you
—gave
me life.

“I know that you would go with
me, Sasha. I know it in my heart and I feel it in my soul. I can’t ask you, and
I can’t let you, and I hope you’ll understand. I lost so much in my life, so
very much because of my own foolish stupidity. The Sweet, Blessed Maker Above
has seen fit to show me kindness and friendship and honor in you, and I could
never suffer that loss.

“Sasha, there’s something I have
to tell you, something I should probably have said a while ago. I wanted to
tell you that your professors were wrong. They weren’t just wrong about
spirits, about life after death. They were wrong about love, too. Because
Sasha, I tell you now as humbly and as truly as if I were before the Maker,
Himself, on my knees—I love you, my Dear, Sweet Chance. I love you beyond
measure. And I know that I have no hidden motives—and you should know that,
too. You have seen into my heart, my Dear Sasha, and you know that there is
nowhere there to hide.

“I’m sorry I have to go like
this. Be nice to Kelton. Remember me.

“Love, in and for, always.

“Drothspar.”

Sasha looked at the tablet, at
the front and the back. Tears streamed down her face and she dropped the slate.
Corporal Kelton caught the tablet before it hit the ground and Sasha looked at
him. She tried to walk past him, but Kelton caught her around the waist.

“I’m sorry, Miss,” he said
softly, like a loving father. “I can’t let you go.”

She reached for her daggers, but
her hands, wet with tears, slipped off the handles. Her fists flew forward and
battered Kelton on the face and chest. He took it stoically, letting her hit
him over and over. All he said was, “there, there, Miss, it’ll all be okay.”

Kitti came over with the unbound
Vae. They took the girl from the battered corporal and held her close. He
handed them the tablet and walked away slowly.

Drothspar looked up and saw the
pale light of morning piercing through the trees. He had often shied away from
weapons since that drunken night so long ago. His mind had shuddered away from
the fear that he had, perhaps, killed his own friend in a drunken brawl. He had
kept that guilt, that fear, from that moment to this, and he had been reluctant
to handle weapons, not out of a fear of the weapons or what he might do, but
what he might remember.

He drew the cursed dagger from
under his cloak and looked at it. It was rusted, true, but it was surface rust.
The blade, itself, did not appear to be deeply pitted. The edge, lined with
reddish-brown oxidization, was still keen, even jagged from the rust. He
gripped the blade tightly in his hand. He felt the wood of the handle compress
in his grip. He opened his hand and saw indentations where his fingers had
been.

Kitti had told him that he was
more than a collection of bones. She had stressed that point, urged him to
remember it. He stepped out of the forest and into the plains around Æostemark.
He walked toward the ranks of the dead with purpose. What was it that she
wanted him to remember? He looked again at the indentations he had made in the
dagger’s handle. It would take a very strong grip to do that. He pushed back
the sleeve of his robe. He saw nothing there but bones. There were no muscles
to strengthen his grip and yet it had been strong. If his strength wasn’t based
on muscles, what was it?

Vae had passed a dagger through
his neck. Petreus had pulled the very bones from his hand. He was something
more than just those bones; that was certain. What was holding him together?
His soul? He had never heard of the soul possessing these sorts of properties,
but then, he had never heard of a walking corpse—outside of ghost stories,
anyway.

If it wasn’t soul, and it wasn’t
flesh, blood, and sinew, what else could there be? The answer came to him as he
asked the question. What existed beyond soul, flesh and blood? What existed
beyond reason, logic, and emotion?

Faith. Belief. By the Sweet
Maker, he thought to himself, I am a creature of Faith!

Something eased in his being at
that point, as if an ever-present anxiety had finally fled, allowing him to
relax. He neared the outer ranks of the dead with his mind at ease and his body
ready. He was going to find Li, and nothing was going to stop him. He had come
to an understanding of himself, and he knew his purpose. He said a quick
prayer, asking forgiveness for those he would find this day. He asked the Maker
to guide him, to let his aim be true. He told the Maker he would be sending
souls to Judgment this day. He told himself he might just be joining them.

Drothspar passed through the
formations of dead without challenge. He looked at the creatures, each with
forms that were variations of his own. A miasma of decay hovered in the air.
Though he walked among them, none acknowledged his presence. Their blank or
hollow eyes stared in whatever direction they faced, oblivious, it seemed, to
all around them. Their sheer number astounded him. He admitted to himself that
he was looking for a fight. He thanked the Maker that he didn’t have to wade
through hundreds of trapped souls fighting.

A movement several ranks away
caught Drothspar’s eye. He froze where he was, waiting, watching. A soldier
threaded his way through the dead, heading directly for Drothspar. The man was
flesh and blood, but his uniform and armor were tattered, stained with blood
and decay. Drothspar wondered why the man chose to wear those clothes, and what
the red cloth around his arm signified.

The soldier stopped as he neared
the platoon where Drothspar stood. He started inspecting the dead, one by one.
He pushed at them, prodded them, and knocked several to the ground. Drothspar
remained still as the soldier neared.

The soldier’s behavior was
erratic, violent. His eyes, however, were glazed, his expression almost soft.
He was two skeletons away when Drothspar noticed the soldier’s pallor. The
man’s skin was pale, nearly translucent. His complexion would have better fit a
young milk-maid… or the dead! He reached out a hand toward Drothspar, who hit
the soldier square in the chest with an open palm.

The soldier staggered back into
the rear of another rank of the dead. He ripped his sword from his ragged
leather belt and swung. Drothspar, his dagger already in his hand, caught the
blow, the steel of their weapons ringing in the morning air. The soldier’s face
showed no emotion, but his movements became more erratic, angry. He chopped
repeatedly at Drothspar with his sword and Drothspar easily parried each blow.

The bodies surrounding the fight
ignored the combatants. They remained standing in ranks as the soldier’s wild
blows bit into their bones and both fighters shoved them for room. Drothspar
realized that the dead were not going to help the soldier, and he was grateful
for that, but the sound was going to draw attention sooner or later.

He dropped his defensive posture
and moved to attack. He let his emotions take the bit into their teeth and he
unleashed a furious assault on the soldier. The soldier, however, made no move
to defend himself. He continued to make wild attempts at striking Drothspar,
each of which the skeleton neatly avoided.

Drothspar ran his dagger into the
soldier’s chest and wrenched the man to his right. The soldier didn’t scream,
didn’t wince, confirming Drothspar’s suspicion that the man had been killed
once before. He jerked his dagger free of the strange corpse. The soldier’s
face remained expressionless, but the eyes—the eyes revealed a longing, and a
hope. Almost as if fighting with itself, the soldier jerkily pulled his own
sword to his right side, as if he were about to make an obvious, and clumsy,
horizontal swing at Drothspar’s abdomen. Drothspar looked into the man’s eyes
and intuitively understood. He spun quickly to his right, bringing the dagger
in his left hand around in a wide, incredibly fast arc. The soldier jerked his
blade upright at his side in a last warring attempt to defend his body.
Drothspar’s blade struck the sword, shattering it and slicing through the man’s
neck. The soldier’s head toppled to the ground, his body remaining upright.

The body continued to stand and
Drothspar stared at it, amazed. It seemed to him as if the headless corpse were
trying to orient itself. It reached its left hand toward him, too accurately to
have been a guess. Drothspar looked down at the severed head and realized the
eyes were still focused on him. He ducked the outstretched hand and kicked the
loose head several feet away. The body swiveled where it stood, as if it had
been spun rapidly in circles and let loose dizzy. Drothspar shoved the corpse
over and it fell heavily to the ground. Picking up the hilted half of the
soldier’s broken sword, Drothspar drove it through the body and several inches
into the hard-packed dirt. He stood up, took one last look at where the head
had landed, then turned to continue on toward Æostemark.

It took some time for Drothspar
to make his way to the breach in the north wall of the city. Though he passed
hundreds of dead, he did not encounter any more soldiers like the one he had
decapitated. The sky was cloudy, but he watched the progress of the sun as best
he could. It seemed to him that it was about an hour before midday as he passed
the ruined wall and entered the rubble-strewn streets.

The rank-and-file dead were
largely consigned to the fields around Æostemark. Drothspar moved easily
through the debris, keeping to the shadows, his cloth-wrapped feet making
little noise. He made his way to the northern edge of the town square and
looked out over some sort of ceremony.

Drothspar saw several ranks of
living soldiers in glittering chain armor, and what appeared to be more of the
life-like dead. There were several men in shiny black robes. One man appeared
to be incapable of standing still, like a sailor who just walked off his ship
after a turbulent six-month cruise.

Another of the men in shiny black
was the focus of all the attention in the square. He was an older man. His
hands were outstretched and he was intoning a chant in a language that
tantalizingly eluded Drothspar. The old man’s outstretched arms were leading to
a body—half flesh and half skeleton. Drothspar watched, mesmerized, as flesh
and blood worked its way up the corpse like serpents slithering into a bush.