Fire & Bone — Chapter IV

Myra did not run. Apple distrusted that immediately. People ran when caught. They lied badly. They reached for weapons, doors, windows, gods, or excuses. Myra Block looked at the four people who had followed her across Fishbrook and adjusted the papers in her arms so their edges aligned.

“You found the journal,” she said. Wyn held it where she could see. “You left it.” “I left several things.” Her eyes touched the torn page in Isca’s hand. “That was the least useful once the ship departed.” Sebastian stepped between her and the rear hall. “We are looking for Malrick.” “No,” Myra said. “You are looking for someone who can take you to Malrick. That is a more difficult request.” She looked at Apple. “And before you ask, yes. I know what he intends to do with the Emberkin eggs.” Apple’s hands went to his daggers. Myra did not flinch. “She wants to know whether we are going to kill her,” Apple told Sebastian. He had not asked her. He did not need to. “Saru is correct,” Myra said. The name struck harder than a threat. Apple’s lips drew back from his teeth. His tail went rigid behind him. For an instant the Rag Lantern disappeared beneath temple smoke, burning leaves, and the weight of Koruma’s ring against his chest.

No one in Fishbrook should know that name. No one connected to Malrick should speak it. “Do not call me that.” “Then I will not.” Too quick. Too reasonable. As if she had expected the answer and merely recorded it. Wyn studied the seams of her coat. Small warding knots had been sewn into the cuffs with dark red thread. Not active. Not yet. Her gloves were marked with ink at the fingertips. A spellcaster who kept records, or a record keeper who had learned to defend them.

“The eggs,” Apple said. “What did he do?” Myra looked toward Johana. “Not here.” Johana had heard enough to decide she wanted none of it. She jerked her head toward a room behind the desk. “Use that. Break nothing.” Halen remained outside the front entrance, watching the street. Sebastian led Myra into the back room. Wyn and Isca followed. Apple entered last and shut the door. The room contained a square table and six chairs. Myra chose the one with the clearest view of both exits. Of course she did. She set down the black folio but kept one gloved hand resting on it. “Now,” Sebastian said. “Malrick.” “My sisters first.” “Where are they?” “Likely aboard the Sable Heron. They were meant to leave before noon.” “And you?” “I waited for final confirmation that the test had succeeded. The captain left early.” “That was not my question.” “It is the most accurate answer I have. If they sailed, I want your word that you will not pursue them or deliver them to Malrick.” Sebastian pulled out the chair opposite her and sat. He did not remove his sword. Wyn remained standing. Isca placed herself beside the wall. Apple climbed onto the end of the table, close enough to reach Myra before any spell in her cuffs became active.

Myra noticed. She noticed everything.

“A distinction for accuracy.” “Seventeen people are dead accurately.” For the first time, something shifted behind Myra’s precision. Not surprise. She had expected deaths. The journal had made that clear. But perhaps not seventeen. “The result exceeded the yard models,” she said. Apple heard the words from the journal. Survival rate. “You counted how many would live,” he said. Myra looked at him. “I counted how the cattle would move.” “Your patron counted the rest.” She did not deny it. Sebastian leaned forward. “Why should we bargain with you?” “Because Malrick has already left Fishbrook. Because Travis is marching while we sit here.

Because Halen is outside guarding the wrong door.” Apple glanced toward the front of the building. Myra’s eyes followed his. One step ahead. Even now. Sebastian sat back. “You and your sisters leave unharmed. You give us everything you have promised, and you do not warn Malrick.” “Agreed.” Sebastian looked at Wyn. Wyn shrugged. It was Sebastian’s play. Sebastian looked at Apple. Apple looked toward the front room, where Halen waited. “Halen isn’t going to like this.” “No,” Sebastian said. “He is not.” Then he held out his hand to Myra. She looked at it for one heartbeat, removed her glove, and took it. Her fingers were cold and stained with ink. The bargain was made.

– • • Myra began five years earlier in Sanivor. “Malrick wanted to make a cockatrice,” she said. Apple stared at her. “A real one?” Isca asked. “He would have accepted something close enough to improve the legend. At first the questions were small. Could a rat support a stinger? Could the venom gland remain viable? Could a goose be made to spit poison without poisoning itself?”

“Normal questions,” Sebastian said. Myra ignored the tone. “They were experiments in modification. Crude ones. Most failed.” “Most?” Wyn asked. “Most never survived long enough to be useful.” Apple decided the questions themselves were bad enough. “You joined him then?” Wyn asked. “No. He had enthusiasm and no method. A year later he found me again in Sanivor. He had funding, equipment, and access to a tower beyond Graymark. He asked me to join him. The people financing the work called it an assignment. Observer and handler.”

“Whose funding?” Sebastian asked. “At the time, I believed St. Germain.” “And now?” “Now I believe the money may have come through Grimhallow.” The room became quieter. Myra opened the black folio. Its pages were filled with the same narrow writing as the journal, diagrams layered over calculations, observations fitted into margins where no space appeared to remain.

“We spent two years attempting stable joins between animal lines. Chickens with scales. Snakes with beaks. Musculature transferred from one line to another. Most died within days. Then one lived three weeks. Another survived a month. Another three months.”

“And after that?” Isca asked. “After that, they bred true enough to continue.” Wyn looked down at the diagrams. “You stabilized them.” “Malrick provided the ambition. I provided the records that kept us from repeating failures.” No pride entered her voice. That made it sound more like pride.

“The forest?” “The tower at its center.” Isca said, “There are stories about that tower.” “There are stories about a vampire in it,” Myra replied. “When Malrick returned, he had changed.” “How?” Wyn asked. Myra considered before answering. “Less uncertainty. Less sleep. More secrecy. He began treating people as materials rather than assistants.” “You were modifying living creatures,” Sebastian said. “That distinction arrived late.” “Yes.” The single word stopped him. Myra did not defend herself. She merely continued. Travis had commanded two hundred troops. Men among them began dying from blood loss.

Travis later took control of the soldiers at Glarus and became more openly sadistic. “You believe Malrick became a vampire,” Wyn said. “I believe something happened in Grimhallow. Malrick still walks in daylight. He does not appear to sleep or rest. Perhaps he was changed. Perhaps he serves as a familiar. I am a spellcaster, not a scholar of vampires.”

“And your sisters?” Sebastian asked. “Nine of us worked under him.” “Willingly?” “At first.” “And later?” Myra’s hand tightened once against the edge of the folio. “Later we understood that leaving would not be allowed until the experiment was complete.” Apple watched her face. She gave him nothing else. “When did you decide to run?” he asked. “When Malrick stopped asking whether the creations could survive and began asking how many people they could kill.” The answer came too cleanly. Practiced. Perhaps true and practiced. Apple could not tell. “Fishbrook was not research,” Sebastian said. “No. It was proof of scale.” The journal again. North chosen for proof. Primary chosen for scale. Drover’s chosen for spread. Myra saw recognition on Wyn’s face. “You read enough,” she said. “We read survival rate,” Apple replied. This time she looked away first.

– • • At Glarus, Malrick had found an Emberkin vessel and a crucible. Myra could describe what he did with them. She could not explain what the vessel truly contained or how Emberkin reproduction worked. No one had told her, and Malrick had guarded the answer.

“He added Emberkin essence to the joins,” she said. “It prevented rejection. Rodents grew larger than their lines should permit. Combined traits stopped collapsing after birth.”

Apple’s claws pressed against the tabletop. “The eggs.” “Something taken from them kept the changes stable.” “Taken how?” “I do not know.” Apple leaned toward her. “You write everything down.” “Everything I observe. Malrick did not allow me to observe that.” Wyn said, “Would he have hidden it if the eggs survived?” Myra looked at him. “Yes.” Not an answer. Wyn knew it. Apple knew it. Myra knew they knew it. She continued before Apple could decide whether to draw a dagger. North of Glarus, in the in-between lands, they began with cattle. Not random cattle. Lines selected for size, temperament, and the ability to follow herd pressure. They trained them to Three Gates Home because drovers and common bards already knew the song.

“No enchanted instrument to trace,” Wyn said. “No unusual melody to remember,” Myra replied. “Only animals taught to move when the proper line followed the proper turns.”

Seventeen dead and a district broken, reduced to a word precise enough to fit in a margin. Myra closed the folio. “Fishbrook was one trial. Malrick’s purpose is larger.” “Your field journal gave us the sequence,” Wyn said. “Fishbrook, the Elder Tree Monastery, and Venom Thicket Tower. It did not tell us why those places matter.” “It gave you the design,” Myra said. “Not the changes made after I wrote it.” She unfolded a map across the table. Two places ahead of them had been marked. Both belonged to the remaining Red-6 sequence. Venom Thicket Tower. The Elder Tree Monastery in Greenvale. An additional mark had been drawn beside the monastery. Apple recognized the location by the shape of the forest and the river bends drawn beside it.

The monastery had another name, one he had shared with no one. Ti Temple. His body went cold. “What does that mark mean?” “Malrick believes the monastery’s sacred work—and its Heart Stone—can amplify the ritual.” “No.” “Travis has been sent to secure it.” Secure. A clean word. Apple heard the danger beneath it. Travis had become a danger to the temple itself, whether Malrick’s ritual succeeded or not. Apple stood. “No.” His tail struck the table hard enough to move the inkpot. “How many soldiers?” Sebastian asked. “I do not know how many remain with him.” “When did he leave?” “Long enough ago that you should not remain in this room.” Apple jumped down. “We go now.” Sebastian did not look away from Myra. “Sit.” Apple showed his teeth. “We need the rest,” Wyn said quietly. Apple hated that Wyn was right. He climbed back onto the table but did not sit. Myra touched the Venom Thicket mark. “Malrick needs components from the tower. Elven druids are helping him. Either he has promised to spare them or they expect access to the completed magic. The monastery matters because it stands upon the ley lines.”

Wyn bent over the map. “Glarus.” “One theory holds that someone disturbed the line beneath the mountain and caused the volcano. Malrick believes the same network can carry a controlled pulse.” “From where?” Sebastian asked. “The Elder Tree Monastery.” Myra placed one finger at the center of the route, then traced it toward the Elder Tree Monastery. “He intends to use the monastery’s Heart Stone to condition domesticated animals across the island. Not one yard. Not one city. Every herd, stable, kennel, rookery, and work pen the pulse reaches.”

Apple stopped breathing. The Heart Stone of the Ru Temple was safe. Apple had hidden it beneath green leaves, among roots and memory, to keep it from pirates. Malrick could not have that one. But the Elder Tree Monastery—the Ti Temple—was old and hidden and sacred in its own right. It had a Heart Stone of its own. Now Malrick intended to turn that stone into a bell for the entire island. First he would have to find it. Travis marching toward the Ti Temple made that less comforting. “How long?” Wyn asked. “The calculations varied. Fifteen hours at the shortest. A day and a half at the longest.” Sebastian’s hand tightened against the table. “How do we stop him?” “Deny him the monastery. Take Venom Thicket Tower before he finishes collecting what he needs. If the alignment is broken, he may never begin.” “May?” “Precision does not improve because you dislike uncertainty.” Sebastian almost smiled.

Apple reached into his pack. He moved aside rope, a wrapped piece of food, and two tools that Sebastian insisted were burglary tools and Apple correctly identified as tools. From beneath them, he drew the pale, skinbound book with less confidence than he would have preferred.

He placed it on the table. Wyn went still. Sebastian stared. “Is that the book from the buried library?” Myra’s composure broke for less than a second. “That was in the library,” she said. “We did not bother taking it.” “Apple did,” Sebastian said. “You stole it,” Wyn said. Apple drew himself upright. “No. I checked it out.” “There was no one there to check it out.” “Then no one objected.” Sebastian closed his eyes briefly. Neither of them had known. Apple had been careful. He had meant to remain careful for longer. “You knew what it was?” Wyn asked Myra. “It draws answers from written records,” she said. “In the library it could reach the archive around it. We expected the working to go dormant outside that structure, so Malrick saw no reason to carry it.”

Then she drew the book toward her and opened it carefully. The pages showed pies. Not words. Not Malrick. Illustrated recipes fixed in place from Apple’s last request. Wyn looked at him. Apple lifted his chin. “They are useful.” “Yes,” Myra said. “This one. It fixed on the last answer when it lost its anchor.” Wyn came beside her. Myra removed a sheet of paper and began writing. Her hand moved quickly, every line small and exact. She diagrammed the ritual she believed would reawaken the book, noted the order of the marks, then wrote the name beneath them.

Malrec pen Bodric. “His true name?” Wyn asked. “The name the book should recognize.” “Should?” Sebastian said. Myra did not look up. “Precision does not require false certainty either.” Wyn studied the ritual. “Charged gems.” “You will need them.” “Where?” Myra reached beneath her coat and produced a small iron key. “Near Drover’s Yard. Go north to the red house, then take the first right. There is a cache beneath the rear stair.” She placed the key beside the book. “Magical protection?” “None.” “Physical?” “A lock. You have Apple.” Apple picked up the key. “Then why give me this?” Myra looked at him. “Courtesy.” He distrusted that too. She replaced her glove and gathered the black folio. Sebastian remained seated. “Your sisters,” he said. “Where do we find them?” “You do not. If the Sable Heron carried them out as planned, they are already beyond Fishbrook. If it did not, I will find them without alerting Malrick. Either way, you will not pursue them.”

“Convenient.” “Accurate.” Myra stood. No one stopped her. At the rear door, she paused and looked at Apple. “Do not assume Travis intends only to occupy the monastery,” she said. Then she left. Apple reached the door in time to see her pull up the hood of her cloak and disappear into the narrow lane behind the Rag Lantern. Red-blonde hair flashed once beneath the dark cloth, then was gone.

Halen still stood at the front entrance. away. Apple looked toward the front room. “Halen isn’t going to like this.”