Carol Berg - Breath and Bone

We sat in uncomfortable silence. Saverian’s stomach growled. My own had near gnawed itself through, and we’d not a scrap of food or drink between us. Though her flames grew and bathed my front side in warmth, I could not stop shaking.

A soft slapping sound from the darkness to my left sent me to my feet like a whipcrack. A dripping Kol stepped into the ring of firelight, tossed two fish the size of my boot soles onto the sand in front of us, then walked into the night without a word.

“So are you mad or sane this morning?”

Saverian’s bent must signal her when a person’s awareness returned, for I’d not so much as lifted an eyelid or stirred a muscle in my nest of sand. I managed only a grunt in reply. Such early questioning left a body no time to enjoy those few moments of uncomplicated, irresponsible satiation that occur between sleep and waking. It didn’t seem at all fair.

Of course, I had waked her with my screaming in the middle of the night, convinced the sea’s crashing signaled the world’s end and that hurricane-driven knives were flaying me. I vaguely recalled her yanking the gold disk from my neck and wrestling my thrashing limbs quiet as it sent forth its maggoty magic to quell the onslaught. Humiliating. I’d been so sure I could control her spell.

“You’ve likely an hour until the sun’s above the cliff,” she said. “There’s fresh water in the rocks down that way where the cliff’s collapsed.”

I rolled to all fours, spitting sand, blinking away sand, shaking my head to speed the shower of sand from my hair. The stuff had crept into my boots and my ears and every pore and crevice in between. As I stumbled through the cold gray dawn to relieve the pressure of food and drink, the grit abraded my feet, my eyes, my waist, and my groin.

I returned to our little camp clearer in the head at least. No matter what happened with Kol, if I thought to go anywhere and accomplish anything afterward, I needed Saverian’s medallion back, along with better teaching as to how to use the thing.

The physician was cooking some eggs on the same flat stone I had used to cook Kol’s fish. The lively fire and the replenished stock of wood testified she’d been awake much earlier than I.

“I hope you’re not bruised,” I said, squatting opposite her as she poked her eating knife at the eggs. “Thank you. Sorry for the fight.”

“Having to deal with your illness was a good thing, I think. It made me forget what a puling coward I felt last night with all this…strangeness…and seeing Danae in the flesh and getting whacked in the head. I began thinking as a physician again.”

Her admission startled me, but I detected no humility in her demeanor. She wrinkled her nose at the eggs as they quickly took on the color of dirt and the consistency of drying plaster.

“I considered what the Dané said about this ‘change’ being trapped inside you. Perhaps he holds the true remedy to your disease.”

“I’d like to believe that. But clearly you’ve not met my mad patronn. Kol’s work is not necessarily benevolent.” I grimaced, as always, at the recollection.

“Osriel told me your history,” she said. “I can’t blame you whichever way you choose. But you can’t go back to nivat, and I don’t know how long the disk is going to help you.”

“Your rock is a bit too hot.” I offered her a flat piece of wood to use for a plate. If she didn’t eat her eggs soon, she could use them to bandage wounds. My stomach growled and rumbled. “Were there more of those wherever you found them? Or did Kol bring them?”

“I’ve not seen him as yet this morning. And these were all I could find without climbing, so you might as well take half.”

“I couldn’t—”

“Would you stop being so polite? I’ve wiped up too much of your bodily fluids to like you, but I’m not prepared to let you starve or go mad, either one.” She scraped the leathery mess onto the wood and ran her knife down the middle, dividing them precisely in half. “But I detest dirt and cold and sleeping on the ground, and as you see I’m worse than useless at cooking, so please just get this business over with and show me the way back to my own bed. I must get back to Osriel. His illness does not wait. I can resolve my difficulties with him.”

She pulled a spoon from her belt kit and began eating. A bruise on my hip, caused when the two Danae had thrown me to the ground, was the only remnant of my own kit. Her dagger lay wherever Kol had kicked it, and I had carried no weapon since Boreas stole my knife all those months ago. I scooped the ugly little mess with my fingers and stuffed my mouth full. A fine time for my uncle to walk out of the sea with his hands full of green stuff.

With only a cool observation, he dropped the soggy weeds onto the sand beside us and strolled down the shore to the clustered rocks where we were to meet. His gards gleamed silver, scarcely visible in the sunlight. Instead of climbing onto the rocks to wait, as he had the previous day, he propped one foot on the rock and bent forward, leg straight, stretching his arms to touch his toes, his chest flat along his thigh. He remained there, perfect in his stillness.

“Do you think he’s praying?” I said, wiping my sticky hands on my chausses and imagining the ache of such posture. It made the abbey practices of kneeling and prostration seem benign.

“Did you not observe the way the other fellow moved…danced…before he set to crush your knees?” said Saverian. “Evidently even a Danae body must work to develop that kind of power and forestall damage. The sea is cold, which tightens the muscles. He’s loosening them again. I suppose he means for us to eat this green mess.”

“You’re welcome to all of it,” I said, not so hungry as I’d thought.

Kol shifted his stance to the other leg.

I pulled off my boots and dumped the sand from them. Examining the brightening sky above the cliff top, I judged I had time enough to wash the gritty egg taste from my mouth. Naught was like to wash away the taste of fear or loosen the tightness in my back.

Leaving my boots by the fire to warm, I headed up the shore barefoot. As I strode away from Saverian and her fire, and Kol and his rock, doubts crept forward, whispering that I was a fool to consider Kol’s offer. Saverian’s leathery eggs had reminded me of days when I’d had naught so fat and filling. I’d never been greedy of pleasure, wealth, or happiness. I’d enjoyed my life—eating what I scrounged, drinking, singing, dancing, albeit in my own crude fashion. I’d shared delights with women and left them laughing and satisfied; I’d worked hard and walked the length of Navronne beneath the skies of summer and winter. I’d seen marvels and talked of philosophy and nonsense with a variety of folk. What more did I want?

Education was truly a wicked thing. Ignorance had served me well for seven-and-twenty years, and now these monks, princes, and serious women and children had forced me to take note of the world’s trouble, and got it all tangled up with honor and righteousness and good works. But I was no grand thinker. No mighty warrior. No martyr or hero or scholar. I had no plan for saving either Jullian or Navronne from Sila Diaglou, and no twisting of my brain since my recovery had devised one.

By the time I’d located the trickle of fresh water that burbled underneath a collapsed segment of the sea cliff, washed salt and sand from face and teeth, and swallowed a few mouthfuls, I’d half convinced myself to run away. I would persuade Saverian to return the gold medallion and teach me how to control my disease. Kol had offered no remedy to prevent me going mad from stinks and noises.

The Dané put himself through several more contortions, sitting, squatting, bending, and stretching. The fellow could not be built on bone. Not human. Gods…