A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

No hope for him, he knew that now. There never had been. Only the fall itself, the sheer and simple way one fell down — straight to Hell, no detours. And the dubious comfort of sharing your pain with whoever you might be able to grab tight enough hold of to drag there with you, along the way.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“‘Thank you’ seems . . . markedly inadequate, in the face of what you just gave me,” Sophy Love told Yancey Kloves, as they sat atop the butte, watching Grandma, Yiska and the braves preparing for their task: drawing Navaho signs on the rock, smudging a wide circle with aromatic smoke, singing atonal phrases into the wind. Torches on long poles surrounded a central fire in a ragged ring of flickering light. Though Gabriel had since managed — how like a man, or at least a baby! — to go back to sleep, Sophy could sense his dreaming thoughts yet, on the outermost edges of her brain; a not unpleasant mix of pressure and shadow-play, similar to being constantly aware of a nearby lantern’s heat, even when its flue was shuttered.

“Least I could do,” Yancey replied, looking wrung out. “Considering.”

“Yes. But . . . it’s a beginning.”

“And I meant it, you know,” she went on, not looking at Sophy or Gabe. “About surrendering.”

Sophy drew a long breath, gathering her thoughts. The pain did seem more distant now, though that might well be due only to fatigue. But nevertheless, such an admission deserved honesty; she set herself to address it, if she could.

“Mesach . . .” she began, at last. “When he was in his right mind, I’m sure he knew — had to’ve known — that vengeance was the Lord’s alone to take, not his. ‘I will repay,’ saieth our Creator.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Romans, 12:19. It is a central tenet of our faith, and must be acknowledged, no matter the circumstances. So — in the end, just as Rook’s and Pargeter’s punishment was never truly his to administer — neither is yours mine. And while I appreciate the offer, I won’t require it of you.”

“Justice isn’t vengeance, though, nor vice versa; forsaking one can’t give you a free pass on the other. Can it?”

“No, Missus Kloves. Yet, to my mind . . . it’s always the quick who stand in far more urgent need of justice than the dead.”

For what did you accomplish, after all, she wondered, by making Mesach pay the price he’d incurred — did you bring your loved ones back to life, the way Pargeter did mine? And what would I reap, exactly, were I to sow whole fields with your blood, madam — ’sides from dragon’s teeth and damnation, immediate regret in the short-term, risk to my eternal soul in the long — ?

Sophy sighed again. “All of which is to say . . . I won’t honour Mesach’s legacy by despairing of the Lord’s Word and trying to substitute my own, elsewise the bloody wheel will never stop rolling. For though God is just, He is also merciful; another thing we too often forget, to our shame.” She looked down at Gabe, frowning a bit in his sleep, and chucked him beneath the chin, gently. “Might be you’ll answer for Mesach yet, Missus Kloves — but it won’t be by my hand. There has to be forgiveness, somewhere.”

As though urged to try and figure out where such a place might lie, they contemplated the star-bedecked horizon together awhile, ’til Yancey bowed her forehead against her knotted fists. With a start, Sophy realized the younger woman’s shoulders were shaking. Uncertain what she might do to help, however, she carefully kept her gaze fixed outward, misdoubting Yancey could accept comfort from her just now — even had she had any in her to give, which she wasn’t at all sure she did.

Silen

t moments passed, and presently Yancey’s spine relaxed, her breath easing.

“Missus Love,” she murmured, “if Reverend Rook had had half the faith you do, then . . .” Abruptly, she snorted. “But then, if my aunt had nuts she’d be my uncle, as Chess might’ve said . . . and did, on at least one occasion.”

Sophy felt caught between shocked giggle and discomfited blush, to be reminded just how close Yancey was — in spirit, if not carnally — to that dangerous little man. “Back in Bewelcome, the Reverend promised me he’d keep Gabriel safe, if I surrendered to him,” she said, for lack of any other response. “Even offered an oath to that effect. I thought it mere duplicity, at the time, but . . . could he have known Gabe was — what he was? Somehow?”

Yancey frowned, considering. “Seems unlikely,” she said at last. “Not ’til after, I think, though he saw it in Chess before Chess turned; one could easily overlook in a child what seems obvious, in an adult.” She spread her hands. “From what little I’ve seen, Asher Rook isn’t to be trusted one inch, let alone further.”

Sophy nodded slowly. “I suppose so . . . yet he did say something else to me. That ‘When a hex breaks an oath, it means more than you know.’ And Doctor Asbury claims it’s an oath of some kind lets the Hex City folk work and live together — something they swear to that Lady of theirs, or the City, or each other.”

“The Spinner once told the bilagaana blackrobe Rook of a binding of that kind.”

Both women started; Yiska had come up behind them as they spoke, stealthy as ever, with Songbird in barefoot tow, blanket-wrap slid down to her shoulders to guard against the chill and her white hair seething in the cold wind.

“If two Hataalii wish to live together safely,” Yiska continued, “there is a song by which they may bind their power into perfect balance, each feeding off each — but only if both agree to give up the Hataalii path completely, for fear of turning Anaye. And afterward, their power can never be divided. Break that oath, and one of the two must take it all, leaving the other dead.”

Sophy grimaced. “I believe I can see why that arrangement held no appeal for Reverend Rook, prompting him to cobble together his own.” Then, glancing from Yancey back to Yiska: “Still, whatever the strictures of Hex City’s Oath, it clearly requires no sacrifice of power, and yet will work for any hex who swears it.”

“Like that story of ‘English’ Oona’s,” said Yancey thoughtfully. At Sophy’s blank look, she explained. “Chess’s mother; I’ve been using her to reach Chess, down in Mictlan-Xibalba. She said somebody worked a binding on her which was kin to that ‘song’ of Grandma’s, albeit more grotesque. He used it to trick his victims into giving up their power to him — sucked them dry, like the wampyr in my Ma’s old folktales, then somehow fixed that link in place, so it stayed forever open but left them alive and leaking, a bucket with no bottom.” Yancey scraped up a handful of sand in one fist, then spread her fingers and let it sift down into her other cupped hand. “Whatever they gathered, ever after, trickled instantly away. They couldn’t hold any magic long enough to work even the simplest spell.”

Songbird scoffed. “Impossible. Once fully flowered, no magician’s reservoir of ch’i is so fragile as to be permanently punctured thus, short of death — ” She stopped, mouth open. “ — but when was this magic worked upon that red-haired whore, the man-killer’s dam?”

“When she was giving birth to Chess,” said Yancey steadily. “And — not coincidentally, I’m sure — right when her own hexation was coming awake, for good. Expression, Asbury calls it. The man who did it to her was Chess’s own father, too.”

“Ai-yaaah.” Songbird gripped her own elbows, shivering. “Three workers all linked by blood, with the mother in mid-bloom, fighting to survive her own babe’s hunger . . . yes, perhaps only then could it be done. Devour the magic so forcefully as to destroy what holds it, without killing the holder, while the ch’i channels are open but not yet fully rooted. With but a little more skill, one might even make the transference permanent — the victim’s power would flow perpetually to the thief, allowing him to draw on her ch’i as well as his own. The sorcerer who worked such a binding upon even a few victims, therefore, would be near-invincible. . . .”

“Might well be what he was trying for,” said Yancey. “Though I didn’t hear everything Oona said to Chess, this hex — ‘Columcille’ — was some piece of work. Guess we can be thankful he either didn’t succeed, or got killed ’fore he could do so more than once.” Dismissing the matter with a shudder, she looked back to Yiska. “Whichever, what does seem so is that the common element here’s consent, no matter the arrangement — that everyone has to swear to it willingly, make some sort of union.”