Page 2 of Mistress of Bones
“Have a mount ready. I leave within the hour.”
Enjul took his sketches and tore through the hallways toward his quarters. Maladies. Rare, so very rare there had been only whispers of one in his lifetime.
Long had Enjul heard the rumors of the malady taking up residence in Cienpuentes; long had he wished to put an end to it. Sancians didn’t seem to care, just like they didn’t care about defiling the gods’ bones on which they’d built their capital, and he wished to correct their mistake. But his emissary duties belonged with Valanje, the land of the Lord Death, not Sancia, where belief in the Blessed Heart and the Lady Dream reigned supreme. Infuriating that they thought these two lesser gods amounted to more than the Lord Death or the Lord Life. Had Death and Life not created the Blessed Heart, the Lady Dream, and the Lord Nightmare? Had they not plucked the moons from Hope and Despair’s remains?
Now this malady might have arrived in Valanje. Now Enjul might have it within his grasp, and he’d see it erased from this world, thrown into the understars and Void beneath the lands. A spark ignited inside him, spreading warmth inside his body and hastening his steps. His god agreed.
The trip to the Anchor city of Diel took two uneventful days, eastward across the low mountains, and no matter how often Enjul traveled here, the sight still dazzled. For how could a city built on the gods’ bones fail to impress?
Diel rose from the land, a wide peak of glittering blue Anchor covered by houses of all colors and sizes. It stood, alone and magnificent, the high point of an enormous valley of farmland extending from the mountains and the thick forests in the far north and south to the sea at Diel’s eastern footstep.
It was a good thing the sea separated the great island of Valanje from Sancia and the continent of Luciente. The gods’ blood limited the reach of Sancia’s rotten beliefs, the maelstroms making passage across impossible but for narrow routes south and north.
The closer he got to Diel, the more magnificent the city became, the blue rock of its base almost too bright for the eye to take. For someone like Enjul, who was always aware of the signs of death on every person crossing his path—every flower, every plant—such a display of rock was a welcome respite from the rot. That the Anchor was Lord Death’s own bones only made it even more magnificent.
Farmers and travelers walked by the roadsides to make space for riders and carts, their clothing a simple, dustier version of what Diel’s citizens wore. No doublets, no cumbersome skirts for them; no velvety plumes attached to their hats and no half capes. No elegant rapiers or long swords.
Soon the dirt path turned into the intricate mosaics of flagstone covering the streets winding up the peak of Diel. Buildings grew in elegance, the glittering blue of the gods’ bones peeking here and there, undisturbed.
Enjul dismounted and walked toward the grand building topping Diel, where the slopes were so steep it was dangerous for horses to traverse. Valanjians hid at his approach, and guards stood at attention. No words were needed to grant him access into the Great Council House. Here in Valanje, in the land of the Lord Death, an emissary needed no permission.
Rudel Serunje was waiting for him in one of the parlors, tall and lean. He wore a waistcoat over his traditional long shirt, the lower folds falling all the way to the knee. The rings around his golden-brown irises were a warm gray—narrow, friendly. They didn’t clash like Enjul’s wide, thick, deep violet ones. They made him approachable. People in Sancia, used as they might be to the differences in Valanjian eyes, wouldn’t gawk at Rudel as they might at Enjul.It must have served him well in Cienpuentes, Enjul thought,made him forgettable and easy to underestimate.
Serunje stood and gave Enjul a slow, respectful bow of his head, belying the sudden tension in his body. “Emissary.”
“Valanje’s Eyes, explain the situation.”
Serunje offered a cup of water. Enjul refused with a sharp move of his hand, and the Eye placed the cup back on the side table.
“First, I must explain how we came to be at Diel’s port, Emissary,” Serunje said with no little wariness.
“Proceed as you see wise,” Enjul conceded, hiding his irritation. His hands itched with the need to find this malady, to have it under his purview. Surely it must be nothing but the shadow of a person, a wraith that had somehow gained flesh and bones. Brittle, like its existence. Easily dispatched under his hands or his sword.
“I was sent to Cienpuentes as one of our… emissaries to their court,” Serunje began with a dry twist to his tone. “They are appreciative of our—Valanje’s—success without the need for Anchor and would love nothing more than to learn our secrets, especially after the Anchor mining ban.”
In Enjul’s opinion, about the only smart thing Sancians had done since the raising of the lands, and that only after Girende, one of their Anchor cities, had eaten itself into a hole and fallen into the Void. “I heard they might overturn the Anchor mining ban, now that their queen is dead.”
How long until they took all the Anchor they could reach and the whole of Luciente caved in on itself? The gods’ bones kept the floating continents in place above the Void—without them, they would fall. Why were Sancians so intent on mining their home to its doom?
No wonder a malady had risen there. No wonder the poison of their greed had taken human form and sought to spread.
“Even if they do,” Serunje said, “the truth is that they are running out of Anchor. Those with a brain in their head seek other ways to add to their fortune, improve their crops, or discover other ways to streamline their businesses. They have reached out to their east as well as to Valanje. We find this might benefit us, expand our trade in Sancia and beyond.”
“Free passage across Sancia to the rest of Luciente?” Enjul asked, though if he was impressed his tone gave no hint of it. There was nogoing around Sancia, not for Valanje. The sea didn’t reach far enough around Sancia for them to access other countries in Luciente, and there was nothing beyond the sea but the free fall of the Void. “You aim high.”
“If not free, then at much reduced fees. To this end, Cienpuentes put together a group of representatives to return our visit. One or two with promise, the rest their court’s discards. On our way, we stopped at Agunción, where we picked up two additional travelers, and from there we traveled to the coast, where we crossed the sea to Diel.”
Enjul hadn’t moved from his position by the window. The view of the Sea of Eyes was alluring, but that wasn’t the reason he had chosen his spot. Sunlight enhanced the view of his bone breastplate: a reminder of who he was and why he was there, a reminder that one couldn’t escape death. “You have explained your arrival. Perhaps it’s time we concentrate on the reason I was summoned.”
Serunje grasped his hands in front of his waist, the first obvious sign of nerves since Enjul’s arrival. “I must remind you, Emissary, this is an extremely delicate matter. The death of a Sancian in Valanje is not a good way to begin a deepening of the relationship between both countries.”
“You called me to investigate a suspicious death.”Maladywas on the tip of Enjul’s tongue, but he held back. He must not put ideas into the other man’s head. Enjul would look at the facts, then decide. His pulse thrummed at the possibility that Cienpuente’s malady had truly arrived to his lands. Wishing did not make things true, he warned himself. He had warned himself of this many times since leaving for Diel. “I must know the details.”
Serunje gave him a fast look, then focused on one of the paintings on the wall: Diel in all its glory, with the orange and pink farms, the richness of auburn and yellows on the buildings, the deep green of the sea and all the little ships anchored to its docks. And, of course, the brilliant blue of Anchor. “I barely believe it myself, but, Emissary, I would not have requested your help if the matter hadn’t been this strange. As part of the envoy alighted from the boats, one of theyoung women we met in Agunción turned to dirt right there on the docks.”
Ah.Enjul inhaled sharply. “You were witness to this?”
“I had already disembarked and was organizing the deckhands to take care of our trunks when the commotion made me look. All that remained of the woman was her clothes and a pile of green-brown dirt.”
