The Temple of Heart and Bone (7 page)

Li!

She was going to be out of her
mind with worry about him! His own mind started racing at the idea of Li, alone
and pacing, worrying about her wandering husband. She probably wasn’t just
worrying; she was probably blaming herself for letting him get away in the
first place. He imagined her sitting by their bed as he tossed and turned in
fever. She had likely sat vigil all night long and fallen asleep. And, of
course, he had chosen
that
time to go out for his walk. She was going to
kill him…

Drothspar
listened for the return of farmers and dogs. He walked back and forth along the
fence for practice, noting that it had collapsed in several places. One broken
rail on the fence might have escaped fixing for a day or so, but more than two
would have been unacceptable. Mrs. Fern ran her farm like a little general, and
she inspected it quite often. How could the fence have broken in so many places
without her sending in forces to repair it? True, the search for the “Wandering
Drothspar” might have distracted her, but had he really been gone
that
long?

He listened to the sounds of the
fields and the oddly deserted structures. He heard the wind whistling through
gaps in the buildings and shutters banging around windows. He also heard the
squealing creak of rusty metal, some hinge, perhaps, on a sluggish shutter.
Birds chirped, though not many. He leaned back against the fence and worried.
His vision was dimming.

His concern grew as his hazy
sight faded. What if the illness robbed him of his sight permanently? What if this
haze was all he would ever see again? He slowed his thoughts down, trying to
relax and think. If he lost his vision, he would compensate. Men had gone
through the world blind before. He’d made it to this farm almost completely
blind and with no help at all. He thought of all the scents he could still pick
up, the fresh breeze and grass. A darker scent was there as well, like
something long since burned, perhaps an old bonfire. He could hear the whispers
in the trees and the songs of the birds. If he lost his sight, he would still
find his way in the world, and still find a way to appreciate its beauty. He
would still have Li.

He pushed aside his thoughts of a
worried wife and imagined her smile. He thought about the way she always played
with her ruby pendant. He loved the little clicking sound it made as she ran it
along the chain. He would always have his memories.

His vision continued to dim, and
he continued to encourage himself with what remained. He was worried, true, but
he wouldn’t let his worry get the best of him. It was bad enough he’d wandered
away in fever. He wouldn’t let himself be carried away while he was still
reasonable and rational. Man could compensate for many things if faith allowed.

He stayed there, at the fence,
wondering about a world without sight. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
His sense of time was still lost. He wrestled back and forth between what he
might miss in blindness and what beauty was still afforded him through his
other senses.

Trying to focus on those other
senses, he scented a coolness in the breeze. There was moisture in the air, and
it carried with it the rumors of dewy, fragrant grass. An image of cool
mornings blossomed into his mind, and he realized, not for the first time in
his life, how powerful the sense of smell could be in triggering memory.

The fragrances that came to him
brought to mind a flood of images regarding mornings. He remembered being a
child and running through grassy fields shortly after the sun had risen. He
didn’t remember why, because, as a child, he hadn’t needed a reason to run
through the grass. He remembered waking early to attend school, and thought of
how he had not welcomed the scent of mornings for many years of lessons.

The songs of birds began to
intrude upon his thoughts, and again, he marveled at the beauty available to
him without sight. He listened to their calls and crying. He wondered what the
meaning of their music might be. Were they greetings or warnings? Were lovers
calling out to each other, or were enemies threatening harm? Could they simply
be chatting, or even singing the praises of the Maker? Did the birds, like the
priests of the Order, greet the day in praise and prayer?

Greet the day
, he thought to himself. Morning!
He’d been so focused on the surface that he had not realized the substance! The
scent of morning had come to him on the air, and the singing of the birds
greeted the new day! Had so much time really passed? He had no feeling for it
whatsoever. He could reason that he had moved from a certain course of thought
to another, but he had no means to internally gauge exactly, or even
imprecisely, how much time had elapsed.

He bent down from the fence post
and felt for the grass. The feeling was still muted, but he found it, and he could
feel the moisture there. He felt the dew of the morning. It was true! Time had
passed from one day to the next. He listened, trying to pick up any sound that
might come beyond the calling of the birds. He hoped to hear cows lowing their
urgent pleas to be milked. Some few people, perhaps early sleepers that were
also early risers, might have been left with the farm. If so, he thought, they
would find him soon and lead him home.

The sounds he heard, however,
were the same as before. The wind returned to whistle and rattle in the
structures—and to encourage that rusty hinge to creak. No dogs ran from the
forest barking at his presence in their territory. No farmhands came out to see
what he needed. Strangely, none of the livestock complained of hunger or
neglect. Morning should have been the busiest time on the farm. Even if he had
arrived in the middle of the night, someone should have stirred by now.

Could they all have gone off to
some sort of fair? That might explain why all the animals were missing, but
surely they’d have left someone behind to tend the farm. Unless, of course,
that someone had been enlisted to aid in the search for a feverish wanderer.
Here he was, leaning against the fence of their farm, and perhaps they were out
in the woods chasing him down. He tried to call out again, and again, no sound
came. He continued to rattle strangely when he moved, though. He was about to
investigate that sound when something new caught his attention.

Light, he could see light! Having finally crested
the trees, the sun’s light poured down into the farm, and Drothspar could sense
the growing brightness. His vision was still very hazy. He could barely see the
blur of his hand in front of his face, but he was certain it was getting
brighter. He was almost overjoyed that the darkness he’d experienced had
actually been darkness and not the failing of his vision. He stared about at
the shadows and thought that they might be slightly sharper than they had been
the previous day.

The previous day. He still
wondered that the entire day could pass without some sense of elapsing time. He
didn’t even feel tired. He hadn’t felt tired since he’d first awoken. He
thought about that more seriously. He remembered the crawling, the walking, the
waiting, and the worrying. All that had happened—strenuous activities of the
body and mind—yet he was not tired.

Perhaps it had been the fever. If
he had lain ill for many days, slept for countless hours, maybe he’d just slept
so much that he’d built up a store of energy, like a silo for grain. The only
other thought that occurred to him was that—maybe—he was just so excited to
finally be awake that he couldn’t be tired or sleep. Possibly it was a
combination of the two. Either way, he was awake.

His vision, though slightly
clearer than before, was still not good. He thought about trying to get into
the house but decided against it. First off, he reasoned, he’d be seen more
easily outside than inside. Secondly, he wasn’t really sure which building was
the house or which might be for storage. He could literally shut himself in a
shed and out of everyone’s sight for days. That would round out the excursion
nicely. Another thought that occurred to him was that he might very well open
the door to the house and tumble down into the cellar, snapping his freshly
wakened neck. Li would
not
be pleased if he’d run off just to get
himself killed. No, he decided, the fence was the best place for now.

The passage of time still gnawed
at his mind. He felt he needed to try to get a handle on how much time was
passing. He knew that the fence he was leaning against ran east to west. If he
took a broken rail and leaned it against the good rail, he could make a
rudimentary sun-dial. Then, if he were to lie still beneath the broken rail,
he’d be able to sense the passage of its shadow. He hoped. Only one way to find
out, he thought to himself.

It was a strange experiment,
designed to keep him occupied and alert as much as anything else. He considered
the fact that he’d be lying down, and less likely to be seen, but someone might
notice a body lying on the ground, too. Most likely they’d be looking for him
to be horizontal anyway. He smiled to himself. Shouldn’t disappoint them.

He watched the progress of the
shadow for what must have been hours. He was certain it must have been hours
because the shadow had passed completely from his right to his left side.

Once again, he began to sense the
dimming of his vision as the day passed into night. He looked up into the
darkening haze searching for the shadow of the broken rail. He couldn’t find
it. He knew that the night was progressing around him, though in its vast
shadow, he had only his thoughts to mark its passage.

During
the day, Drothspar’s activities and thoughts had focused on faith and hope.
Now, in the night, with no light to guide him, he began to revisit the more
negative aspects. Would his sight return, or simply taunt him with hazes light
and dark? Was he at the right farm or even in the right region? What if he’d
fallen ill in some other place, on a visit to family or friends? He could be
anywhere. He admitted to himself that he was lost and alone. Even worse, he was
without food or water.

He thought about the unnoticed time that had passed.
He quickly tallied what he had done up until that point. Not once in what he
could best describe as two days had he eaten or had anything to drink. He
didn’t feel hungry. He didn’t feel thirsty, either. If he had been feverish, he
was pretty sure he would not have eaten. He remembered having fevers when he
was younger, and food was the last thought on his mind.

He stood up from his sun-dial experiment, hoping to
encourage his thoughts with movement. As he did, that strange rattling sounded
again. He was fairly certain it had sounded, somehow, within him. He moved
again and listened to the sound. It was like metal, he thought, a large piece
of metal on wood. He moved again and he felt it move with him. It was an odd
feeling, as if it were coming from inside himself, but he could feel it moving,
hitting him. The sounds of the metal hitting wood coincided with the feeling of
something striking inside of him.

He lifted up his hand, trying to
look at it in the darkness. He waved it before his face, and thought for a
moment that he could see it. He moved to listen to the rattle, and tried to
place his hand where he had felt the movement. His hand struck his rib cage,
and he felt about with his fingers. He had never before felt his ribs to be so
prominent. He must have lost an incredible amount of weight. Running his finger
over his ribs, he pushed in the space between them. His finger sank right in.

He tried very hard to remain
calm, and he felt like he was doing a pretty good job. He couldn’t feel his
heart racing in his chest, and his breathing didn’t seem to be excited. He
tried to focus on his breathing. He seemed to have some sense of breathing, so
he tried to stop it, to hold his breath. He seemed to be holding his breath,
but he didn’t feel any burning in his lungs. He didn’t feel any need to
breathe. He touched his hand to his neck, hoping to feel his pulse. His hand
pushed deeper than he had expected, and what his fingers found was hard, solid.

He moved again, feeling the
rattle move within himself. Reaching under his rib cage, he caught hold of
something slim and hard. It was flat, perhaps an inch wide. He tugged at it,
knowing it was lodged somewhere in his chest. It wouldn’t come down. He twisted
it back and forth, trying to free it. As he twisted, something scraped in his
rib cage and came loose. The weight fell free in his hand.

He ran his fingers up and down
the flat of the object. Part of his mind screamed at the possibilities, and
part of his mind urged him to remain calm. He thought. He thought, and he was
aware of that thinking. Grasping on to that idea, he let his hand slide up the
flat to a hard cross piece, about three inches across and curved downward. He
calmly tried to accept the impossible reality of the truth. His hand moved over
the cross piece and wrapped around the handle of the weapon. He took his other
hand and placed it up into his rib cage as far as he could. He felt nothing
other than structure.

 He was dead.

He sat still for quite some time,
the dagger lying across his legs. He tried not to think. He just wanted to
be
for a moment, just to be. He felt his phantom breathing return, unbidden. He
didn’t try to stop it, didn’t want to think about it. He felt his hands on the
dagger, his left on the handle, his right on the blade. He started rocking
gently, either trying to scare away thoughts or encourage them—he just wasn’t
sure anymore. He felt himself close his eyes; he didn’t want to check with his
fingers to feel if he had or not.

He rocked gently until he scented
the cool morning air. He once again heard the return of the birdsong. He felt
as if he had opened his eyes, and he saw the sky brightening before him.
Objects were still somewhat hazy, but he could see quite a bit more clearly
this morning. The light of day began to illuminate the scene around him.

He looked around at the buildings
of the Ferns’ farm. The shapes were odd and their colors dark. For the most
part, they seemed to have been severely burned and charred. The fence he had
followed and leaned against showed signs that the fire had touched it, as well.
It was a testament to its construction, he realized, that it had remained
standing at all. He noticed a shutter that seemed to have been untouched by
flame. It moved gently in the breeze and he recognized the familiar rusted
creak.  Most of the building structures seemed to have fallen in upon
themselves, unable to support their own weight. He understood now why their
shadows had been hard to see against the brighter sky.

He looked down at the dagger. It
was the color of rust from the handle to just short of the tip. The flat of the
blade was lightly pitted and stained by something dark and black, his own
blood. The point was remarkably shiny. He looked past the decaying dagger,
seeing, for the first time, the thin legs on which it rested. They were bones,
only bones. No flesh draped off of them, rotting or otherwise. No skin or hide
covered them. He looked at his hands, bringing one close to his face. It, like
his leg, was only bone. Slowly, afraid of the answer as much as he was afraid
of the question, he touched his finger to his eye, or, at least, where it
should have been. His finger encountered no resistance as he moved it around
the vacant socket. He fought back a cold, defeating despair.

Curiously, he thought, eager to
hold on to anything other than that chill fear, he could still see. He pushed
another finger into his other eye cavity, and still he could see. He could even
see the fingers pushing into his eye sockets. He removed his fingers and set
his hand back upon the dagger. He heard the sound of his bones striking the
metal. He ran his fingers again across the blade. He felt the jagged rust and
pitted depressions. He brought the blade to his face. He was certain he could
scent the rusted metal. He had no flesh that he could feel or see, but he could
still sense all that was around him.

He had to be dead, he thought.
How could anyone be living without their flesh and blood and internal parts? He
was no doctor, but he’d seen dead people missing quite a bit less than he was
himself.

A miracle, he hoped. A curse, he
responded bitterly. One or the other, he thought to himself—or both. Setting
the dagger to his side, he pressed his hands together to pray. He wondered if
the Maker of all things would hear the prayers of whatever sort of abomination
he had become. He hoped so, he truly hoped so. He prayed fervently, asking for
strength, asking for guidance, and begging that his sanity remain
intact—praying that it still was. He sought comfort in the repetition of
prayers he had learned in his childhood, prayers he could recite in his sleep.
He repeated them over and over, relaxing himself and his mind.

Part of his mind, freed by the relaxation of the
prayers, suggested to him that he had not woken from any sleep in the forest.
Acknowledging the thought, he continued to pray. The same part of his mind
reminded him that he had come to the farm searching for honey, that honey had
been one of his first conscious thoughts. He nodded to the memory and continued
to pray. His mind pointed out to him that he’d gone for the honey to retrieve
it for Li.

His prayers stopped instantly.
Li!
He felt for the dagger next to him and grasped it tightly. He took one last
look around the farm to get his bearings and began to walk back toward the
forest. He pushed aside all thoughts of despair and fear for himself. He
focused on Li. He had to get back to her. He followed the fence around to the
fallow field.

His crawling had disturbed the
tall grass which had grown in the field. He was thankful that, at that point,
he had not yet been able to walk. His trail away from the fence and back into
the forest was easy to follow. He was amazed at how much space he had covered
crawling with his hands and feet. He looked closely at the ground and noticed a
sharp following trail. The tip of the dagger must have been dragging in the
ground along with him, polishing off the rust.

He followed his own trail to the
very edge of the wood. Here, too, his trail was apparent, as the fallen leaves
were pushed aside to uncover the forest floor. Vagrant winds had shuffled the
leaves around somewhat, but not enough to cover his progress entirely. It did
slow him down, however, and he was grateful for the sharp point of the dagger.
It had cut an even deeper groove into the forest floor, making the trail that much
more certain.

He looked up into the tree tops,
trying to get some measure of the sun’s progress. He knew it wasn’t far from
the farm itself to the forest. He was not sure, however, how far in the forest
he’d been when he had “awakened.” He had a sudden sense of repetition. He had
some memory of looking out at the farm from the forest. He struggled with the
thought, looking out through the trees. He could barely make out the blackened
structures of the farm in the distance. He thought he struck close to the
memory, but his mind shied away, as if afraid to look too far out of the
forest.

He went back to searching for his
trail on the forest floor, concerned that he was blocking a memory of the farm.
Had he been responsible for its burning? A quick apprehension gripped his
entire frame before he brought it up short. There were plenty of real problems
that he could find to think about at the moment without the need to go
borrowing to the neighbors.

Borrowing to the neighbors
. He had gone to borrow something
from the neighbors.

 Or had he?

Honey, he thought, he’d gone to
get honey.

He hadn’t gone to borrow
honey—he’d gone to buy it. Mrs. Fern kept a hive at the farm, and her honey was
wonderfully sweet, made from the wild flowers of the forest. Li loved Mrs. Fern’s
honey. Li, he had to find Li! He looked back down to the trail. It led him to a
fallen tree where not only the leaves were disturbed, but the very ground
itself.

Drothspar looked down at the
freshly broken and exposed dirt. It was clearly the size of a man, and rotten
bits of clothing littered the soil. He stepped into the spot next to the tree
and a shadow seemed to pass over his vision.

The forest grew dark and deadly.
He heard the muffled thud of hoofbeats. He turned back to look at the way he
had come. It might have been some trick of the sun, but it looked as if the
remains of the Ferns’ farm, still hazy in his clouded vision, had caught fire.
Drothspar swiveled his head around as if expecting something. He dropped
heavily to his knees, the rusted dagger he held stabbing deep into the ground.

Murder.

With a great wave of despair, he
felt the dagger bury itself deep within his breast. He couldn’t fight back, he
had no weapons. He could take away this man’s weapon, though. He remembered clinging
to the dagger, almost pulling the rider off balance. He’d pulled the dagger
deeper into himself to gain a better grip. He remembered a fleeting look of
amazement on his killer’s face, wiping away the macabre grin of satisfaction.
Then he had crumpled to the ground, still cradling the instrument of his death.

Drothspar leaned against the
fallen tree feeling weakened. He remembered it now, the feel of the metal blade
sliding into his body. He remembered the cold, unnatural presence in his
breast, and the way his heart had thrilled against its hard surface. He
remembered gasping his last breaths, feeling as if they were ineffectual, as if
he were trying to grasp air in open hands. He remembered pulling the weapon
deeper into himself, holding on to it for dear life. His life, however, he had
known was already over. Why had he done that? He had been weak, dying. He felt
weak and tired just remembering it. Why had he clung to the dagger?

For dear life
—
Li!
Her name was a shout in
his mind. His strength returned to him at the very thought of her. He had
accepted his own death in the hopes of delaying the horsemen. He had thought to
deprive them of at least one useful weapon. It was the only thing he could do.

As he remembered, he got back on
his feet. The horsemen had come from the direction of the farm.
They
had
been the marauders who had torched the simple farmstead. Some of them had
turned to attack him while others had ridden on toward the east. Something had
worried his killer. Drothspar’s last memories were of the riders bolting
off—off in the direction of the cottage.

He was already moving, even while
the memories still played in his mind. He still carried the dagger that had
killed him. The more he thought about the riders heading toward the cottage,
the more firmly he gripped the rusted blade. He had to get back to the cottage,
had to know what had happened. He had no idea how much time had passed since
the night he was murdered. The ground where he had fallen, however, was
disturbed. He had not been buried. The disruption of the forest floor had been
too shallow.