David Farland - The Lair of Bones

He peered at Erin for a long moment, and said, “So I have given you cause to mistrust me. I only ask one thing of you. As my new daughter, I ask your forgiveness, and your indulgence, as I struggle to make recompense for my wrongs.”

Erin studied King Anders. His face was skeletal, and he sat leaning forward, like a child with his elbows on the table. His perpetual expression of worry so mirrored Gaborn’s that Erin could almost imagine that the two were one. She seemed to feel the efficacy of his words. He really did want to save Mystarria.

Yet nothing that he had yet said or done indicated he was anything more than a befuddled old man who hoped to undo the wrongs he had set in motion. Nothing proved that he was an Earth King.

“All right,” Erin said. “I’ll give you a second chance.”

After dinner, Erin left Celinor to talk with his father and went to her room. Her eyes felt full of grit, and all of her muscles were so worn that that she knew she could not last any longer. She would have to suffer through her nightly dreams.

She sharpened her long dagger, then lay on the big four-poster bed, placing her blade under her pillow. The bed felt softer than any cot she’d ever slept on, and she felt almost as if she were sinking into the mattress, sinking and sinking but never quite falling.

She woke in the owl’s burrow. It was dawn in the netherworld, and the storm that she’d felt earlier in the day had passed. So much sunlight slanted under the canopy of the great tree and into the hollow that she got her first clear view of the owl’s den.

It was much like a hollow in any earthly tree. Knobby roots thrust from the floor where they would, while others made shelves above the door. But this was no animal den. Erin could see signs of human habitation. A woman’s face had been carved above the opening to the burrow, and a similar image had been carved above a passage farther back, round the bend of a root.

A pile of bones glinted under the roost where the owl usually sat. Erin went to it and gazed down. There were strange bones, the remains of monsters—something like a giant frog with antlers, and another creature that might have been a fawn, if not for its wide-set eyes and ungainly fangs. Feathers and dust lay in piles on the bones, along with the white excretions of the great owl.

Erin peered round the corner, to the woman’s face carved above the passage. Her face was beautiful, surreal. Her long hair cascaded down, framing the doorway. Beyond it, a tunnel angled down into the ground, with flag-stones paving the way, forming a stair down into the darkness.

Erin breathed deeply. The morning air smelled sweeter than a summer field, but a hint of musk and deep places added spice to the odor. She pinched herself, and felt pain. She felt awake. Indeed, she’d never felt so alive.

In tales of the netherworld, it was said that in the beginning, all men were Bright Ones who lived beneath the First Tree. Erin wondered if this vast tree was indeed that tree of legend, and if the hole that gaped before her led down to some forgotten home. Forgotten or abandoned.

Perhaps the Bright Ones are all dying off, she told herself. Surely, if the flocks of Darkling Glories I saw flying in my vision yesterday are real, then the end of the Bright Ones cannot be far off.

She squinted, searching the walls for a sign of an old sconce with a torch in it, or perhaps a fireplace carved into a nook where a faggot might lie. But she found nothing to light her way.

She turned back, and was about to risk going out into the daylight in order to explore this world that she was condemned to visit in every waking dream, when she heard the rush of wings. Darkness blotted out the light that streamed through the opening of the burrow.

Suddenly, the great owl swooped to its roost, the wind from its wings stirring up motes of dust that shimmered in the air. In its massive beak wriggled something that might have been a rat, if it had weighed less than fifty pounds.

The owl set its prey on the ledge, laid one claw over the creature, adjusted its wings, and sat with head lowered, peering at Erin for a long moment.

“Is it safe to talk?” Erin asked.

“For the moment,” the owl said. It hesitated. “You fear me.” Its thoughts smote her, carrying the owl’s sadness. “You are a warrior, yet you fight sleep to avoid me. I mean you no harm.”

“You’re a stranger,” Erin said. “I’d be leery even if you lived on my own world.”

“You need not fear me,” the owl said, “unless you are in league with the Raven.”

In her mind’s eye Erin saw the Raven, a great shadow that blotted out the sun. She it was who had sought to wrest control of the Runes of Creation from the Bright Council. She it was who had blasted the One True World into millions of parts, giving birth to the shadow worlds that she now sought to claim or destroy.

“It’s not in league with the Raven you’ll find me,” Erin said. “Yet I don’t trust you. Or maybe I worry that I’m going mad, for I’ve never dreamt of anything like you before, but now you haunt my every sleep.”

The owl peered at her, unblinking. “In your world, do not people send dreams to one another?”

“No,” Erin said.

The owl said nothing, but Erin felt sorrow wash over her, and knowledge enlightened her. In the netherworld, sendings were valued as the most intimate form of speech. It had greater power than mere words to enlighten both the mind and heart, and when men and women fell in love, they often found themselves wandering together at night in shared dreams, no matter what great distances might separate them.

“I see,” Erin said. “You don’t mean to worry me—only to offer comfort. Yet the things you show me bring no comfort at all.”

“I know,” the owl said.

“I’ve been hunting for your Asgaroth,” Erin said. “I don’t know where he is hiding.”

“Long have I hunted Asgaroth, too,” the owl whispered, and Erin felt the weight of that hunt. She saw in her mind the figure of a man, a lonely man who wore a sword upon his back, tracking endless wastes. The owl had hunted Asgaroth across countless ages and upon many worlds. A hundred times he had found the creature, and many times he had stripped the mask from Asgaroth’s face.

“When I first dreamt of you,” Erin said, “you held my dagger, and you summoned me.”

“Yes,” the owl said softly. “I seek Asgaroth, and I need an ally among your people. Beware,” the owl whispered. “Asgaroth comes.” It folded its wings over its chest and faded like a morning mist.

At the mouth of the burrow, the shadow descended. Black wings blotted out the sun, and the smell of a storm filled the small hole. The creature that strode down the steps squatted as it walked, its long knuckles scraping the ground. The thing had a man’s shape, but its fangs and clawed fingers spoke nothing of humanity. Darkness flowed at its feet.

A Darkling Glory stalked toward her, cold and menacing.

Erin’s eyes flew open just as her bedroom door began to crack. Her heart hammered. She’d left a single candle burning on the nightstand.

Celinor came into the room, looking solemn. She felt certain that Asgaroth’s locus was near, so she clutched the dagger under her pillow, heart hammering, and prepared to sink it into Celinor’s throat as soon as he lay on the bed.

But just behind Celinor came his father, King Anders.

One of them was a locus, Erin felt certain, but she didn’t know which.

“Ah,” King Anders said in a kindly tone, “I’m glad that you’re awake.”

“We just got a courier from Heredon,” Celinor said. “A vast horde of reavers has issued from the Underworld, and is marching through Mystarria. Gaborn has sent out a call for help to every realm of the north. He begs that any who can come to his defense bring lances or bows and reach Carris by sunset tomorrow.”