A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

Oona was outright staring at him now, red brows knit; Chess wasn’t sure if she was stuck between a gawp and snort, too dazed by Love’s oddity to quite let loose with either. One way or the other, he didn’t care to argue the point.

“Listen,” he said, finally, “I do see that woman of yours, what d’you want me to tell her?”

“Tell her I’ve seen her already, in dreams. That I look to see her hereafter, once I’ve done my time.”

“No reason to stay on in Hell if you don’t need to, Sheriff.”

Love shook his head, smiling. He was almost healed now — back to the way he’d been when they first found him. “Oh, but I do,” he said, gently enough. “And besides — all places alike are Hell, without my Lord. Or Sophy.”

He turned on his heel, then, and left them, retreating into the distance ’til he was only a line bisecting the horizon, a mere speck. Then gone, as though he’d never been at all.

Chess, Oona and Hosteen walked on, in the opposite direction.

The crags became steeper, a mountain range, then one particular mountain, vertiginously high. Eventually, it all ran out — there was nowhere left to climb. Only a sawbacked ridge, flint-sharp, curving ’round a small dip of frost-cracked stone and pebbles just big enough for all three to stand in. Beyond, merely black sky, with one sharp spike of grey rock thrusting rudely starward.

“Now what?” Oona demanded.

Chess was Christ Almighty tired of shaking his head. “Wait?” He took a deep breath, trying to think. “Hey, Kees — considering how high up we are, why is it we ain’t havin’ any trouble breathin’?”

“We’re dead,” Oona reminded him. “Breathing’s nought but a mind-trick any’ow, so what’s ’at prove?”

“Proves what we should’ve kept in mind, all along — ” Chess grabbed two spars of rock and hauled himself up, balancing precariously. “It’s all tricks. Don’t take nothin’ for what it looks like.” He licked one finger and held it up. “I got a breeze here, from the east — Kees, check the other side, see if it keeps goin’.”

Hosteen’s upward scramble took longer, but at length he balanced opposite Chess, testing the wind the same way. “I got it comin’ in from the west.” Looking to Oona: “Ma’am — if you don’t mind?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Oona muttered — then wet her finger and simply stuck it straight up, reaching high as she could. “All right, I feel it. Comin’ fro

m . . .” She trailed off as she turned, tracing its path from south to north, ’til she ended up pointing straight at the spike itself.

“Not comin’ from,” said Chess, voice tight with excitement. “Goin’ to.” Swinging from spar to spar along the ridge ’til his boots were braced on the ridge, he wound up holding onto the spike with one hand. His other slid to where jagged point ran out — and beyond, curving ’round a column of pure blackness, hitherto invisible against the sky, that gave back the tactile sensation of rock.

And something more, now that he concentrated — a faint thrum, like he’d grabbed hold of a telegraph cable in mid-send; a feeling of pulling, as though the column had hold of him, too. His throat went dry, voice hoarse. “Think I found our next thread, Ma — the thread of all threads.”

“Christ on churches.” Oona tipped her head back, looking higher and higher, clearly seeing nothing. “We ’ave t’climb that?”

“We’re hexes, woman; sure we can figure out some other means of locomotivating, we have to.” Grinning, Chess looked to Hosteen. “You comin’ too?”

Hosteen swallowed. “You know where that’s goin’?”

“Not a clue. But I’m willin’ to bet you don’t want to stay here, any more’n we do.”

“Ain’t a question of ‘want’, so far as I can see. One way or t’other, though . . .” Carefully, Hosteen clambered down, dusting himself off. “I’m pretty sure this is far as I go.” At Chess’s double-take, he shrugged, almost sadly. “Got some time left yet t’do, Chess, and I know it. Like the Sheriff said.”

“Aw, shit — ” Covering up something he didn’t want to think on too closely with anger, as ever, Chess jumped down. “Don’t act like you believe some God-botherer’s gasbagging now! I’ve seen the shit waits back down there. You ain’t a bad enough man to deserve that.”

“Wasn’t that good a man, either.” Hosteen glanced back to the head of the trail they’d just climbed. “I got blood and suffering on my hands too, you know. We all did. Any of us try to stop the Rev ’n’ you, at Bewelcome? Did we say, ‘No more!’ afterward, or walk away?” He shook his own head, slowly. “In the end, we all gotta answer for what we done, no matter how much we might’ve thought we had t’do it, or didn’t want to — ’specially if we went on ahead and did it, anyways.”

Chess wanted to punch something — Hosteen, the wall between worlds, he didn’t know, as he somehow knew the older man could tell. But Hosteen regarded him still, unflinching.

“I shouldn’t have . . . treated you the way I did,” Chess said, at last. “You know. Triflin’ with your affections, and suchlike.”

Hosteen laughed. “Hell, I never minded too much! You were . . . precious to me, Chess Pargeter. More’n you know.”

“If that’s the best you had, Kees, then I’m sorry.”

Hosteen shrugged once more. “I ain’t.”

Gently, he took Chess by the right hand, shaping its fingers ’round Oona’s startled wrist before hoving in for a kiss, brief yet firm, smack dab on Chess’s surprise-slack lips. His breath still tasted of tobacco, though Chess could only assume he hadn’t smoked any since before his death. Funny how things clung, down here.