Stephen Lawhead - The Bone House

Taken as a whole, the bizarre structure possessed a distinctly eerie, alien air. The work party began untying their bundles and fitting the bones they had brought into chinks and gaps in the structure, and Kit imitated their example, finding places to work in what he had brought. They laboured with purpose and in silence. When one or the other got thirsty, he would go outside the clearing to eat handfuls of snow, then return to continue working. When the last bone from the bundles had been placed, it was back to the kill zone for another load.

Three more trips to the bone heap for materials brought them to the end of their labours. The short winter day was hastening on, and the workers were growing hungry-at least Kit was starving, and he imagined the clansmen, who appeared to require more than twice as much to keep them going, must have been ready to eat the trees.

Thag stood back, coiling his hemp rope and regarding the Bone House, his big shaggy head held to one side in the precise manner of a carpenter inspecting his handiwork. It was such a classic pose, Kit smiled to see it. Thag gave a grunt that signified satisfaction and turned away. Now that the official verdict had been received, the others grunted too, and the group departed, making their long way back through the forest. The returning labourers ate a hearty meal and, exhausted with the good fatigue of useful work, went to sleep. Kit drifted off too; but if he imagined a restful day to follow, he was mistaken.

For just before sunrise he was awakened by a touch on his shoulder. He opened his eyes to see En-Ul crouching beside him. Into his mind came a possessive urging he understood as: Attend me.

The old chief turned away and Kit followed, moving silently through the sleeping camp. The night’s fire had burned to embers, and the sky still held a sprinkling of stars sharp as ice crystals in the cold, cold heavens. They picked their way carefully down from the ledge and found the well-marked trail leading up out of the valley. Within a few minutes of leaving the settlement, Kit realised their destination was the Bone House, and for one who had been carried into the camp, the aged En-Ul surprised Kit with his stamina. They paused only twice to rest and catch their breath-once halfway up the trail and once at the top of the gorge-and arrived in the forest clearing as the sun rose above the trees.

In the thin winter light the strange edifice glowed with a pale and alien pallor-a white mound set in a snow-white field-taking on a ghostly, almost ethereal aspect as if constructed not of bones but of the mammalian spirits of the creatures themselves. A profound apprehension crept like the stealthy cold into Kit’s soul. This curious shelter had been erected for a purpose, and it was for that purpose they had come.

En-Ul turned to him and, gazing into Kit’s eyes, willed him to understand. Kit received an impression of immense importance, of an unfathomable weight of consequence, a significance of unimaginable magnitude-as if whole worlds of significance converged in this place. There was no single word for it, but the force of the concept struck him with an urgency that was as powerful as hunger and thirst.

Kit, trying hard to understand, was overwhelmed by the thought that had been conveyed. “Why have we come here?” he asked aloud.

The old one tilted back his head and looked at the pale white sky for a moment. Then, returning his gaze to Kit, breathed into Kit’s mind the image of living things of many kinds-the creatures of the forest, the entire forest itself, whole Stone Age tribes-combined with a feeling of swimming against the strong flow of the river, or struggling against a powerful grinding, uncompromising force bent on mindless destruction: survival.

Their presence at the Bone House had something to do with the survival of themselves and their world, was how Kit explained it to himself; and although he could not see how this was so, he did not doubt En-Ul’s sincerity.

As soon as this thought had passed through Kit’s mind, the ancient chieftain turned and walked to the entrance of the Bone House. He paused at the low doorway and stood for a moment, then raised his hand and placed the palm on the forehead of the skull of the giant elk, and bowed his own head in a gesture Kit had never seen one of them make before. Then, bending low, he entered the bone hut, beckoning Kit to follow.

Inside, the bones formed a dome-shaped room of weird, undulating design lit only by the watery winter daylight that found its way through the chinks and crevices of the interlocking bones. The floor was packed snow over which pine branches had been spread, and these piled with skins and furs. Kit saw that a small cache of food-dried meat and berries-and little heaps of snow for water had been set aside.

En-Ul crawled in and sat himself cross-legged in the centre of the room. He looked around and gave a grunt of satisfaction, as if approving of the finished product. Then, when Kit had sat down across from him, he addressed himself to conveying what was about to happen.

In imitation of the old one, Kit crossed his legs and pulled furs around him as into his mind came the image of himself asleep-as seen by one of the clan, perhaps-and then immediately, a sort of curious sensation of flying, of actually having wings and soaring high on the wind… dreaming?

This thought met with a satisfied grunt, and instantly Kit felt once again the immense, bottomless ocean of consequence-only this time it was an ocean, a vast tidal stream in endless flux… time?

“Dreaming time,” Kit said aloud, although strictly speaking, this did not make any sense to him at all.

The mental contact faded, evaporating into the ether, and En-Ul closed his eyes. His breathing altered, his body relaxed, and soon Kit realised that the old one was asleep.

He waited.

When nothing more happened, Kit crept from the Bone House and went out to the perimeter of the circle to relieve himself. The day was growing blustery; a sharp wind, rising out of the north, was soughing through the tall pines all around. The pale sky was darker now with heavy, snow-laden clouds. There was a storm on the way; he could smell the metallic tang on the air. They would have to go back to the shelter of the rock ledge soon, but he was reluctant to disturb the Ancient One’s sleep. Kit did not know what to do, but one thing was certain-he did not care to be out in the forest alone. It was not safe.

Kit returned to the Bone House. En-Ul was, if possible, even more deeply asleep than before. Kit settled down to wait, but after what seemed like an age of doing nothing more than listening to the old chieftain’s deep and regular breathing, he grew too anxious to put off leaving any longer. He took the furs he had been using and wrapped those around En-Ul’s body. Wishing his sleeping companion well, he departed.

Running, jogging, floundering through the snow, Kit scrambled back to the safety of the valley encampment, arriving as the last light faded into twilight mist. The River City Clan greeted his return with grunts of recognition and seemed to accept his absence as a matter of little interest. Kit sought out Dardok, thinking to gain an explanation of what had taken place that day. Holding an image of the Bone House firmly in mind, he said, “En-Ul sleeps there.”

This appeared to be understood-as least so far as Kit could discern-for it met with a snort of gruff acknowledgement.

“He says he is dreaming time,” Kit continued, pushing his luck. “Is that so?”

Dardok’s expression grew opaque, and he grumbled low in his throat-a sign of dissatisfaction. And that was that. The discussion went no further. It confirmed what Kit already knew: whatever faculty En-Ul possessed that allowed him to communicate with Kit, the others did not have it, or at least not to the same degree.