There were more like him once, but over the course of many days—he can’t keep track of how many—the rest fell behind or were taken away or died. He doesn’t know. He can’t see, and what he hears is often interrupted by gouts of pain that stab through his head.
He is missing something, though. He knows that much. Now and again he weeps with anger and despair.
As the wagon steadies onto a smooth forest path, the grassy track a pleasant tickle under his callused, battered feet, he pulls the cloth free and searches the bundle with a hand.
An infant. He is carrying an infant. Blood curdles in the hollow of its sunken chest.
It is already dead.
The torrent of sensation and emotion raged through him until he was overwhelmed, awash. He gasped for air as he staggered again, leaning on his staff to stop himself from falling. His feet slipped on something round and cylindrical, and he swayed as he struggled to regain his balance, to show no weakness before the others. The bone beads tied to the standard rattled softly. Stray bits of dirt spun past his nostrils and dusted his tongue.
“Careful.” Elafi’s touch on his arm came out of the darkness. “There are bones. You’ll slip, just so. Just past here.”
The tunnel debouched into a corbeled chamber, dry and dusty and crammed with neat piles of bones laid into alcoves that gleamed fitfully as Elafi turned all the way around to shine his light into each one. Stronghand straightened, as did First Son and Last Son, and stared somberly at this burial ground. Ki’s breathing sounded very loud, as if she were frightened—or awestruck.
Yet what was there to be frightened of? He glanced back at the tunnel, all but this last portion of which had been formed by the framework of the wyvern’s skeleton. The living could find uses for the dead.
“The wise ones of our tribe are buried here,” said Ki.
“This will be my resting place,” added Elafi.
“You are a sorcerer?”
The young man smiled. Dirt smudged his cheeks and nose, and his eyes seemed very dark. “Did you see a deer, out by the willow tree where we hid? The Albans did.”
Stronghand nodded. “Are you more powerful than the tree sorcerers?”
“I am not unlike them. But alone, I cannot combat them. I am the last sorcerer in my clan.”
“And it’s a good thing you have a clever warrior like me to protect you!” said Ki.
Elafi smiled as he set the lamp in the center of the chamber, under the highest point of the corbeled ceiling, and nodded at Stronghand. “From here you must go on alone. What happens then is up to you and your gods.”
“Where is the stone crown?”
Elafi gestured upward. “This chamber lies in the center, and the great stones beyond it, around it, with their feet in the earth. They chain it to the earth so the dead cannot escape.”
Did all stone crowns conceal chambers at their heart? Did the WiseMothers incubate human bones? Or something else?
Yet ever since Alain’s return, he had suspected what the truth might be. He just hadn’t decided what to do about it yet.
“Show me,” he said.
Elafi pointed to one of the alcoves. “You’ll crawl through there. The tunnel twists and turns back on itself, but I think you are slender enough to get through. You’ll find a ladder. In ancient days it led up to the sorcerer’s house, but you’ll see that it’s long since been covered over. That’s why it’s secret now. That’s why the Albans know nothing of it. There’s a trapdoor set in place by my mother’s father’s father’s uncle. You can crawl through the old foundation. A new shelter has been built over the old one. From underneath you can look out over the stone crown without ever being seen. Or you can squeeze out and walk into the stone circle, if you dare. The Albans and their tree sorcerers fear the stone crowns. They do not venture there at night. These circle priests may be more bold.” He nodded at Stronghand. “You wear their mark yourself. Maybe you know.”
“Maybe I do.” He stabbed the standard’s sharpened end down into the dirt and fixed it there before turning to First Son and Last Son. “Guard this.”
One alcove contained only animal bones, arranged just like the others so that with a glimpse they looked the same as human bones. Laid there, Stronghand supposed, because it was no sacrilege to disturb them as he did, crawling past. He eased along a narrow passage that twisted back on itself twice; the second time the crooked bend was so sharp that he had to back up, unfasten his ax, and push it ahead of him. The iron head rammed against earth, but he was able to adjust the angle and shift it around the bend. Dirt made his ears itch. He pushed himself around that curve and wriggled forward over the wood handle. The axhead had come up against a wall of banked earth, and here he touched the bottom rung of a wooden ladder. It was too dark to see, and he hesitated, wondering if the visions would come again, would even cripple him, but nothing happened.
