Carol Berg - Breath and Bone

“Don’t do it! He plans to—” A jerk of the rope silenced Jullian’s anguished warning.

No curse seemed sufficient to the occasion. I tossed Ronila’s knife and the iron bar into the rubble and did as he had instructed. The lower doors were thrown open, so that a table sat in plain view of the stair. In the center of it sat a bowl of nivat seeds. The scent near caved in my skull. Beside the bowl sat a leather pouch, a rushlight in a small iron holder, and a lidded calyx of silver, the size of my fist. No doubt the pouch contained linen threads and silver needles and enchanted mirror glass.

As I sat on the backless stool and laid my palms on the table, I summoned images of Victor and Kennet to divert my cravings into anger and purpose. I recalled the collections of tools and mapped out where knives, axes, or any other sharp implements could be found and estimated how long it would take me to reach them. Always too far and too long.

Though reason told me that one exposure to the doulon would not enslave the boy, even an hour of such craving for pain must scar a tender soul, no matter that soul’s courage or resilience. I had been fourteen and far from innocent, and I would never be free of it.

Jullian descended the stair, Gildas behind him, clutching the short neck rope. Great gods, what I would have given for the ability to touch minds. If I could but induce the boy to dive or duck, yanking Gildas off balance, I could leap the table and take the villain before he could strike. But Jullian’s face shone pale as quicklime, and Gildas maintained distance enough that I could not possibly reach him soon enough. The monk settled on a bench and forced Jullian to his knees in front of him, the knife poised at the boy’s cheek.

“And so we have come to this day, Valen. The day the world ends.” He tilted his head. “The gryphon gives you a rakish air.”

I would not trade quips with him.

As ever, he grinned, reading me like one of his books. “So well disciplined. You’ve learned much since you first came here. You seethe and plot, seeing naught but obstacles as of yet, and so also you must know what I intend for you to do now.”

One more doulon would not end me. I would control it. Wait for him to let his guard down. Kill him. I reached for the leather pouch.

“Not the pouch. Not just yet. Open the calyx.”

I did and almost choked. The silver vessel held doulon paste—more than I had ever seen at once. It must have been made with two hundred seeds. “Just stick a knife in me,” I said. “I’ll do you better service as a corpse than what this will leave of me.” I would be one twisted scab, a gibbering cripple.

“Made with your own blood. You’ve no need to use it all. Scoop out double your usual amount. Remember, I’ll know.”

I did as he said. Taking tight grip of my senses, I licked the tasteless mess from my fingers. “Iero have mercy,” I whispered as the vile paste ignited the fire in my belly.

Every muscle spasmed at once, every quat of my skin screamed as if I had fallen into the everlasting fire. Yet even such pain as constricted my lungs and shredded my spine was not half enough to resolve the doulon spell.

In mounting frenzy, I slipped from the stool, ground my head into the floor, and clawed my skin, tearing at the cut in my cheek. All foolish notions of control, of retaining sense and purpose vanished. All I could think of was my need for pain.

“Go on now, boy, draw us a pitcher of mead, while I tend him. With a regular diet of nivat, Valen will become quite docile. Rely upon it, a slave who can shelter us in Aeginea shall make all the difference over the next few years as we await the deepening dark. Perhaps we’ll teach him magic.”

Gildas bent to whisper in my ear, his scorn mingling with the shrieking of my blood. “I’m going to let this build for a while, Valen. But don’t lose hope. Just implant the lesson in your head. Relief comes only when I say.”

The fire grew, and my mind broke. I writhed and moaned. I begged him to strike me. But only when my body seized into one unending cramp, and my heart balked and swelled into an agonized knot, did Gildas lay my left hand on the seat of the stool and slam a knife through it.

I screamed at the moment’s blinding rapture, blessing Gildas for the divine release, though I had danced in heaven on this night and knew this was not at all the same. He yanked out the dagger, and I curled into a knot around my throbbing hand and my shame.

Time slumped into a formless mass, even as I struggled to retain some grip on it. Stupid, vile, perverse fool, your king awaits you. How many hours had passed since I had been carried from the Canon? My heart cracked to think that Danae were yet dancing without me.

From Stian’s naming of the dance rounds, I had estimated the change of season would come some two hours past midnight. I would know, he’d said. But then, he had not thought I would be wallowing in a stupor, clutching a pierced hand and working not to empty my guts onto the lighthouse floor.

Gildas had returned to his bench. He cleaned his knife and coiled the rope he had used to hold Jullian. “Come, sit up, Valen,” he said when he’d finished these tasks. “We’ll share a pitcher of mead. Very good mead, I would imagine, as it was laid down in the early days of the lighthouse.”

Behind him, Jullian was twisting his face like a mischievous aingerou, and one of his hands kept making sharp jerking movements. Something about the pitcher in his hand. About Gildas. Distract him…

Gildas narrowed his eyes and glanced over his shoulder. Jullian stepped around us, and I heard him set pitcher and cups on the table behind me. I uncurled, pushed up with my arms, and vomited into Gildas’s lap. That he then kicked me in the face with his slimed boot didn’t matter. Nothing could hurt me.

“Disgusting filth,” snapped Gildas. “Find a rag and clean this up, boy. My boots, too.”

Jullian trotted off and soon returned with a ragged towel. Once the mess was dealt with, Gildas ordered Jullian to pour the mead. “Remember what I told you, boy. Whatever I eat or drink, your protector eats or drinks, as well.”

“Aye, I remember.” So much for my muddled hope that Jullian had poisoned the damnable monk.

Gildas watched as Jullian poured, then prodded me with his boot. “Get up and get something in your stomach, Valen, or I’ll have to drag you to your cell. You remember Gillarine’s little prison? You’ve chains and silkbindings waiting.”

Gildas and I drained our cups in perfect unison. And in perfect unison, we gasped. The bone-cracking spasms came hard and fast; the light splintered.

“J-Jullian,” I croaked, aghast, “what have you done?”

Gildas paled and clutched his belly. Shudders racked his limbs. “The wretched little beast…poisoned us both.”

Not poison. The doulon. I wanted to weep and laugh all together. So bright a mind, but the boy didn’t understand. This would hurt Gildas for a while. But me…two massive doses in the space of an hour…The colored ceiling plummeted toward me, and I threw my arms over my head. My skin felt as if it were peeling away from my bones. Gildas screamed and collapsed on the floor.

“I’m sorry, Brother Valen. So sorry. I know it’s awful.” Jullian kicked Gildas’s knife away and shoved stools and table out of the monk’s reach. With the coiled rope that had bound his own neck, he tied the weeping, writhing Gildas’s hands behind him. Then, grabbing me under my arms, he dragged me, quat by quat, toward the stair. “I had to pour from the same pitcher—give it to you both—else he’d never drink it.”

Trumpets blared inside my skull and would not stop, no matter how I tried to crush them, and always the pain grew, squeezing harsh bleats from my ragged throat. In all my life I had never hurt so wickedly—and my body seized and begged for more. “Kill me. Please, god…”