Pile of Bones (3 page)

“Hello?” Morgan walked slowly around the atrium. “Is anybody here?”

There was no answer.

Roldan turned to examine a mosaic on one of the walls and nearly screamed. An enormous dog stared down at him, wearing a spiked collar. Its eyes were coals, and it had one paw raised, about to strike. He stumbled backward. Then Babieca began to laugh.

“Look,” he said, pointing down.

Near the base of the wall, the words
guard dog
were scrawled. Roldan stared at the dog again. He couldn’t believe it was only a painting. His heart was still racing.

“Clever,” Morgan said. “Let’s go.”

They left the atrium and walked through the dining room, which had its own set of gilded couches and carved bronze side tables. The walls were painted in a dizzying style that made their images appear lifelike, as the dog had been. Flowers and strange creatures met at curious angles, straining to escape their borders, while vibrant red and yellow squares depicted scenes from the city’s history. There was a horn bowl filled with fruit on one of the tables, and for a moment, Roldan couldn’t tell if it was real. Babieca stole a grape, settling the matter. The room led to a columned peristyle, which opened onto the garden. Violets flamed next to marble statuary, whose eyes seemed to follow him. There was a deep pool with chairs and tables beside it. A masked man was sitting in one of the chairs, reading.

He got up as they approached. His silvered mask identified him as a meretrix. They always wore masks, to preserve the illusions that their gens sold. His pale yellow tunica was clasped by a carnelian brooch in the shape of a rose. The garment was sleeveless, and his bare arms were decorated with bracelets of silver and copper. He wasn’t muscular, but his body still suggested a kind of strength. A dagger was cinched to his belt. He looked at Roldan. His eyes smiled, but that may have just been part of his training. Unable to meet the gaze of the meretrix, he looked down instead, at his sandals, which reminded him of tree bark.

“Salve.” He raised his hand in a friendly gesture. “I’m Felix.”

Morgan’s eyes went slightly wide, but she said nothing.
She must have recognized his name. If he were truly a “friend” of the basilissa, he would be known throughout the city, if not by his name, then by his mask.

Roldan withdrew the silk-wrapped bundle from his tunica. He handed it to Felix. Their fingers brushed, and he drew away quickly. Touching a meretrix, even a high-placed one, was never a good idea. Their clients could get violently jealous. For them, the illusion needed to be complete, even if it was just perfume and mirrors.

Felix unwrapped the bundle. The item was a silver fibula—the kind used to pin cloaks. It was wrought in the shape of a bee alighting on a bunch of grapes. The craftsmanship was undeniably skilled, but it was unadorned. Even the silver, melted down, wouldn’t have brought much money. He wouldn’t have called it finery. It was like the second-tier jewelry that you brought out when unfavorable relatives were visiting.

Roldan’s eyes narrowed.

“The basilissa really wants this appraised?”

“It’s more than it seems, I imagine,” Felix replied. “Everything here is.”

Everyone was looking at him now. It was time to perform.

“All right. Give it to me.”

Felix handed over the brooch. He looked at it critically. It was so simple. The basilissa knew what she wanted, though. There was no use questioning. He walked away from the pool. It wouldn’t do to be near water. The others followed him slowly, making him feel like a piper leading sheep or curious children. He walked back to the dining room, where one brass lamp remained lit. Gently, he removed the lamp from its chain and placed it on the table. He set the brooch next to the lamp. Its flame trembled. He passed his fingers through the flame’s white core. The twinge of heat focused him.

“Babieca,” he said. “Get me an apple from that bowl in the atrium.”

Wordlessly, Babieca left. He returned seconds later with a green apple.

“May I use your dagger?” Roldan asked Felix. “It’s sharper than mine.”

“Of course.” The meretrix drew his blade and handed it to Roldan. It was made of tempered steel, with a gem-incrusted hilt. Gems again. It was, he supposed, all part of the city’s intention to dazzle everyone, so they wouldn’t feel the cut.

He peeled the apple, then diced it into small pieces. He laid the spiral of green skin next to the white bits. You could never tell what they were hungry for. Then he waited, listening. Babieca started to say something, but Morgan shushed him.

Eventually, he heard the sound of claws on the table. Delicate sniffing.

“Salve,” he said. “This offering is for you.”

The clawing stopped. He could tell that the salamander was looking at him, sizing up his level of power. Sometimes, the lares were only interested in mischief, but most of them would listen if you appealed to their appetite. The apple skin almost seemed to move slightly. Then he heard what was unmistakably the sound of contented chewing. As everyone watched, the skin began to disappear, spiral by spiral, until it was completely gone. He heard the salamander belch. Then he heard its claws, softly clicking against the surface of the table. He felt its heat as it drew closer to his hand. Then something unexpected happened. The heat grew more intense, and he felt, for the first time, the tip of a claw against his knuckle. He’d never been touched by a lar before. He was sweating. Its fire singed the hair on his knuckles, but he kept himself perfectly still.

“What’s happening?” Babieca whispered.

“Quiet,” Morgan replied, between clenched teeth.

Felix was watching him in fascination. Could he also feel the heat? It was amazing that everyone else wasn’t sweating. When he breathed in, he could taste soot. The air burned his lungs, but he held it, like smoke from a pipe. He couldn’t waver.

Good offering.
The whisper sounded in his ear, as if the
salamander were perched on his shoulder rather than touching his hand. Its voice was crackling papyrus, green wood giving way to fire, settling ashes. The claw maintained its pressure.

Roldan exhaled. “I’m glad you liked it.”

Was hungry. Bare shrines. No delicacies. We like apple.

“Yes. I know it’s one of your favorite things.”

It must have looked like he was talking to the table, or the diced apple, or simply to himself. Babieca and Morgan were used to it, but Felix couldn’t conceal his interest. He had the expression of one who was watching a mad miracle unfold and couldn’t quite tell if it was real. This was his painted dog.

“So.” Roldan cleared his throat. “In the name of the twelve aspects of Fortuna, and the Gens of Auditores, I request a boon.”

Boon?

They always pretended that they didn’t know what you were talking about. Lares could be annoying in that regard. Their voices were tough to distinguish, and he couldn’t see them, which meant that Roldan never knew if he really was meeting one for the first time. In any case, one caught more salamanders with honey than with vinegar, and it helped to stay polite.

“I would like to know if this brooch has any power,” he said. “It’s for the basilissa, which makes it valuable, by our standards. If you could convince the flame to kiss it, only for a moment, we’d be most grateful. I promise to leave some more food for you at the shrines in the forge district, where I know that your people like to congregate.”

Yes. So warm there.

The salamander was quiet for a moment, considering his request. Then its claw dug into his knuckle. A drop of blood appeared against his skin. The pain was surprising, but Roldan willed himself not to move. Smoke rose from the invisible wound. He heard Felix draw in his breath sharply, but nobody said anything.

Give to the fire.

“Thank you,” Roldan murmured, trying to ignore his watering eyes. He tilted his hand over the lamp. The drop of blood hesitated, then fell. When it struck the flame, the light turned a brilliant green. As they watched with widened eyes, tongues of the green flame curled lazily into the air, moving toward the brooch. Sparks fell onto the table, raising no smoke, making no blemish. The green fire surrounded the gift of the basilissa and suddenly flared up, flickering in variegated colors like light pouring through a crystal.

Your answer.

The flame guttered, then shrank back into the lamp, until it was nothing more than the usual tongue of orange. The salamander lifted its claw. He felt its heat recede as it began to move away, climbing down the table and back to the floor.

“Thank you,” Roldan said weakly.

Go now.
Although it was already halfway to the atrium, its voice rang in his ear.
They are coming.

“Who’s coming?”

But it was no longer listening.

“Roldan?” Babieca looked at him oddly. “What did you mean? Is someone—”

They heard the front door open, then footsteps in the hallway.

“We have to go,” Felix said. “Follow me. There’s an exit through the garden.”

“I don’t understand,” Roldan said. “Who’s here?”

“The aedile. You don’t want to meet him. Come on.”

They hurried after Felix as he led them through the garden. Behind a cluster of lemon trees was a narrow passage that led back to the street. They made their way outside. Roldan could hear shouting coming from inside the villa.

Felix rewrapped the brooch and placed it in his tunica.

“Your dagger,” Roldan said. “Here—”

“Keep it. I doubt they could trace it to me, anyway.”

He looked at them all for a moment, and there was a glimmer of approval in his expression, as if he were looking at a real company. Then he reached into a niche in the wall of the alley, which Roldan hadn’t noticed before, and withdrew
a ragged cloak. He drew it over his shoulders, covering his rich tunica. The cowl obscured most of his face.

“Go back to where you came from,” he said. “Speak to no one of this.”

“But—” Roldan wasn’t sure why he spoke. Maybe it was the touch of the salamander that emboldened him. “What if we need to find you?”

The cowl hid his eyes, but Roldan saw him smile.

“That’s easy,” he said.

Then he turned and disappeared down the alley.

“We’d best go as well,” Morgan said. “He’s right. We don’t want to run into the aedile, even during the day. Let’s not push our luck.”

Babieca glared at her. “We haven’t been paid!”

“We’ll be paid with a sword to the gut if we linger here. A meretrix keeps his word, and he said it would be easy to find him. We’ll return tomorrow and pay a visit to the lupanaria.”

“Boar shit.” Babieca was fuming. “We paid for tickets to the Hippodrome. My tab at the Seven Sages has run out. Roldan’s tunica is falling apart—”

“
Move.
I’m not getting thrown in the bloody carcer for this.”

They hurried back the way they’d come, past the grand clepsydra, past the buzzing Exchange, working their way through the brightly colored crowd. Nightfall came quickly, and it wasn’t safe to be here when the rules changed. Roldan stared at the Tower of Auditores. What night games did they play there? What gossip were the spadones privy to? He’d probably never know.

His hand still burned where the salamander had touched him. Why did it feel so familiar? A part of him seemed to remember the touch of another claw, ages ago, but the sweet pain was too distant to recall.

“See you on the other side,” Morgan said.

They parted, heading back to their alleys. When Roldan arrived, he could already feel the pull. Everything was beginning to change. He undressed, replacing his belongings inside the wall. Once they were covered, he laid his hand
against the warm stones. Now was the moment. He closed his eyes. Something moved through him, unraveling. He surrendered to the current, letting it pull him under.

When he opened his eyes, it was all different. Or the same, depending on the way you looked at it. They were back in Wascana Park. The power was still heavy on them, but the crossing had worked. Anfractus and its wilds were no longer visible. They were back in Plains Cree territory. The ground used to be littered with buffalo bones, which was what
Oscana
meant in Cree: “pile of bones.” But the white settlers messed up the morpheme and called it Wascana instead. If they’d known Oscana’s secret, they might have taken the time to get the name right.

It was dawn. The park was empty, so their nudity wasn’t an issue. They pulled their duffel bags from the trees, dressing in silence. For some reason, synthetic fabric wouldn’t make the journey from park to wild. He pulled on his jacket. He could hear the ducks, and faint strains of music from Party Island, where dawn was clearly no impediment to undergraduate drinking. They all had to be at work in a few hours. Now it was the university that seemed like a shadow, not Anfractus, but they’d made their choice.

Living between worlds meant paying rent.

S
HELBY WAS YELLING FROM THE BEDROOM
.

He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but there was profanity involved. He’d left her under a pillow again. The coffeemaker was confusing him. It was a gift from his father, and had a complex panel on it with a lot of choices, like a replicator from
Star Trek
. He selected “ordinary cup,” whatever that meant, and returned to the bedroom. Shelby’s voice was muffled by the pillow, but the cursing had stopped. He liberated her from the bed and placed her on the nightstand.

“—
huge
, I’ve never seen one like this before, it’s like a queen, or some kind of monarch, what sort of government would centipedes have?”

“A republic? I don’t know. Where did it come from?”

“The hole under the baseboard. I’ve trapped it, but I’m not really sure what my next step should be.”

“What’s it doing now?”

“Going apeshit in a mason jar. I’m about to slide some cardboard underneath it.”

“Be careful. Do apartment centipedes bite?”

“No, they’re very ethical. How should I know?”

He heard some rummaging. Then Shelby let out a whoop of triumph.

“Mission accomplished?”

“Absolutely. I’m going to put him outside. I’ll be right back.”

“Him? Did you two bond?”

“Shut up.”

“If you don’t kill it, we’ll be having this conversation again tomorrow.”

“I’m not starting my day with bloodshed.”

He heard her footsteps recede. It was strange to think that houses and apartments had their own genre of centipedes. Were they evil geniuses, or a failed branch of the family tree that couldn’t make it in the wild? He went back to the kitchen, hoping that he’d made the right choice. The travel mug was filling slowly. A yellow light was flashing, but it didn’t seem to indicate danger, so he ignored it. He grabbed Shelby from the bedroom and attached her to the ear-piece.

“—
so
much marking left, I want to set it on fire.”

“That might improve the arguments.”

“One of mine referred to the nineteenth century as ‘olden times.’”

“One of mine quoted Bryan Adams for their epigraph.”

“Ouch.”

He sat down to tie his shoes. Although he’d never admit this to anyone, he still had to visualize a rabbit leaping through a hole whenever he did this. The only solution was to wait until hipsters colonized Velcro, and then he could buy fashionable shoes that didn’t require animal metaphors. He looked out the window, trying to gauge the weather.

“Muggy and windy with a chance of rain,” he said. “Thanks, Regina.”

“Bring layers,” Shelby replied. “It’s the only way. My hair is well and truly cursed, but I’m going to try something with a lot of clips.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“I’m bringing a hat, just in case.”

He grabbed his backpack, which felt like a rock on his
shoulders. A real academic would carry a delicate leather folio, or possibly one of those rolling bags, but the backpack was an extension of his body. It seemed to get heavier each day. He fiddled uselessly with the straps for a second, then stepped out of the house, locking the door behind him. Bugs were swarming around the light on his front porch. He shared the duplex with a retiree named Bob, and both of them had an attitude toward home upkeep that could only be called mellow. The lawn was overgrown, the shed full of dismembered furniture and unused garden equipment.

“My next-door neighbors just renovated,” he said into the ear-piece. “Their crisp new siding is making me self-conscious.”

“Just ignore them.”

“I could scatter a few toys across the lawn. Then I could blame kids for the state of the property. Would a bubble machine and a Diego three-wheeler be too much?”

“Wow. You’ve put some thought into this.”

“Maybe.”

“I think that in the long run, a bit of weeding could be less trouble than inventing children. We could get it fixed up, get some painted rocks, trellises,
pinwheels
, oh man, can we go to Rona and make this happen?”

“I’ll think about it. I’m not sure it’s the summer project that I was hoping for.”

“Carl and I both live in apartments. You’re the only one with an actual lawn. Plus, he’ll do most of the work if we give him beer.”

Andrew stared at the lumpy yard. “It looks as if gnomoi have been digging up my front lawn. I can’t imagine what they’d be looking for. The soil must be pretty bland.”

“That’s parking.”

“It’s not a violation of park rules if nobody’s around to hear me.” He paused. “I had the dream again—the one with the salamanders. I could hear the crunching of their paws. When I woke up, I swore I felt one in my bed, like that scene from
Amityville Horror
when the ghost leaves footprints on their sheets.”

“Lares don’t exist outside the park. Your brain is just overheated.”

He walked down to Thirteenth Street. The taco stand wasn’t open yet, but the cafés were already humming with undergrad activity. Cathedral Village, so named for the church a few blocks down, was Regina’s urban community. It was only a few blocks in radius, but all of the city’s boutique shops and trending restaurants were located there. It was impossible to grab a coffee without running into someone from school, which was why he’d started using a travel mug. He didn’t want to make awkward conversation with his supervisor while waiting in line at Roca Jack’s or Atlantis.

Shelby lived downtown, in a crumbling apartment above the Deli Llama. Her hallway smelled like yam fries. It was one of the few surviving apartments in the downtown core, which had been taken over by bank towers and tapas bars. He crossed Victoria Park, empty save for a group of stoned kids who’d set up camp in front of the war monument. Regina was a city of monuments and plaques dedicated to various atrocities. Louis Riel was tried on this spot, with a hungry crowd looking on. Both the park and the city were named after Queen Victoria. Later, Queen Elizabeth II had included this spot in her progress. She must have said something optimistic while the mud sucked at her gown.
What sharp rocks they have. The bugs are certainly robust.

Regina was in the process of trying to rejuvenate its downtown, which seemed to involve a lot of freestanding sculptures and lights that changed color. Shelby’s place was on Scarth Street, in the middle of a pedestrian mall. A metal buffalo stood at the entrance, with the word
Oscana
carved into it. He inclined his head. Reading a lot of E. Nesbit as a kid had taught him that statues often came to life at night, and it didn’t hurt to be respectful. A few people were gathered around the hot dog cart, but otherwise, the square was deserted. It was flanked by the Globe Theatre on the right, advertising a production of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
, and a comic store on the left that played nothing but speed metal. He’d had his eye on a
Dark Crystal
action figure in the
window but wasn’t willing to face the music, even if the chamberlain’s ceremonial garb was reversible.

“I’ll be down in a second,” Shelby said. “I’m just doing the dishes.”

“Do you want a coffee?”

“No, I’m on a tea kick.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s been going pretty well.”

“Do you want a coffee?”

“I want your unqualified support.”

“You always have that.”

“Thank you. Shit! I hate this detachable spigot. It’s a trap. I always manage to spray myself in the face.”

He leaned against the concrete façade of the Globe, listening to the sound of water on the other end of the line. It was like a New Age CD with intermittent cursing.

“I’m pretty stoked about the lecture this morning,” he said. “
Wulf and Eadwacer
is one of my favorite Anglo-Saxon poems.”

“It’s cryptic. The students are going to hate it.”

“At first. But then they’ll be intrigued.”

“They won’t.”

“A few might be.”

“Andrew, it’s a service class. None of them want to be there, and we’re forcing them to read a thousand years’ worth of literature. We’ll be lucky if anyone in our sections remembered to bring a textbook.”

“I’ve got handouts.”

Shelby hung up.

A moment later, she emerged from a door next to the restaurant. She’d decided to go with the hat, along with a scarf and skirt with a raven print. He was already sweating in his jeans, but teaching in shorts was one of the few rules that he refused to break. The entire Department of Psychology taught in khaki shorts, and it made them resemble a cult. Plains University had once been a hotspot for psychedelic experiments. They’d done work on LSD in the sixties, and there was still a room on the third floor with carpeted walls.
The Department of Literature and Cultural Studies, where he and Shelby both worked as teaching assistants, was more sedate. Aside from a mural featuring winged books, there wasn’t a lot of consciousness-expanding going on.

“The weather’s shifty,” Shelby said. “I’ve brought plenty of layers, and if need be, I’m prepared to enter full Blossom mode.”

“I guess that makes me Six.”

“You both share certain qualities.”

He was drawn back to the buffalo statue. They were plentiful in Saskatchewan before contact. Oscana was the buffalo ossuary of the Plains Cree, and now it was a park, surrounded by a manufactured lake. It was one of the first things he noticed when he arrived here. The park reminded him of playing Myst. He kept trying to press rusty buttons, hoping they’d yield up the Book of Atrus, or at least a mechanical puzzle.

“Did you hear about that guy who was mauled?”

He tore his attention away from the buffalo. “Mauled by what?”

“Coyotes, they think. It was on the morning news. They found his body on the southern edge of the park.”

He frowned. “I thought the last coyote sighting was southeast of Regina. Closer to Richardson. That’s nowhere near the city limits. What would they be doing in the park?”

“I have no idea. Maybe they’re really into ducks.”

“Coyotes hunt pets—not humans.”

“I guess there was a pack of them.”

“There’s a pack of wild coyotes roaming the park, and nobody noticed until today?”

“Maybe the guy was drunk. I don’t know. I was half-listening to the radio while I did the dishes. I only thought about it because animal control is going to be sweeping the area. We’ll have to be careful to avoid them.”

“We don’t usually go that far south.” Andrew shook his head. “Coyotes? I can imagine them killing a child, but a full-grown man?”

“Nature has to be respected. Otherwise, it hunts you where you live.”

They walked to Broad Street. Carl lived above the red awning of Love Selection, which was one of the few spots open past ten in the downtown core. His thoughts returned to the chamberlain. He’d lose his mint status once Andrew sawed through the plastic, but the thought of posing him in the window, next to Willow and Tara, was fairly intoxicating. A fallen Skeksi should make them a triumvirate.

“So—I’m sort of e-mailing someone,” Shelby said. “She responded to my OkCupid profile.”

“What did she say?”

“That I had great taste in movies. But her profile is really sparse. I know that she’s a grad student and she listens to Fleetwood Mac. That’s about it.”

“Have you figured out what department she works in?”

“I’ve narrowed it down to the humanities.”

“Well done. What’s her name?”

“Ingrid.”

“I feel a website search coming on.”

“Don’t you think I tried that? She’s not listed on any of the departmental sites.”

“You could just ask her.”

“It seems forward.”

“Do you see a date on the horizon?”

“I was thinking of asking her to see a movie.”

“Good call.
Prometheus
is playing.”

“I’m not taking her to an
Alien
prequel. It should be something fluffy. Something without the possibility of incubation.”

Carl was standing outside when they got there.

“Just a second,” he said. “I’m texting my mom to figure out what time we’re going to Skype tonight. If we stick to audio, I can still play Mass Effect with the sound off.”

“You’re a paragon,” Shelby replied.

“She’s distracted too. I feel like we communicate best in that state.”

They decided to take the university bus, which vibrated with anxiety. Two students across from them were doing something with flash cards. He spotted a few professors reading.

“I hid the knife,” Andrew said quietly.

“Parking.”
Shelby gave him a look. “That’s two times in the space of an hour.”

“It isn’t parking if I avoid specifics. I could be talking about any kind of knife.”

“We’ll revisit this at lunch.”

He must work in the Subura. That’s where the basia do business, flanked by street popinae who sell mushrooms and chickpea soup. He could be on this bus right now, any one of these people.
They all looked so different outside the park. When he first met Shelby, he thought:
She can’t be Morgan.
They didn’t trust their reflections. Babieca played the cithara, but Carl didn’t know anything about music. Roldan talked to lares. Andrew could barely talk to Conexus Credit Union when they called.

They arrived at Plains University. Carl went to the Department of History, while Shelby and Andrew made their way to Literature and Cultural Studies. In order to complement the flying books, they’d recently put up images of theorists, magnified to frightening proportions. Michel Foucault regarded them sternly as they passed. Dr. Laclos had already left his office, which meant that they had about five minutes to make it to the lecture hall. He’d begun his PowerPoint presentation by the time they got there, but they were able to slip in beneath the cover of semidarkness. He talked about the opacity of medieval literature, the strange but familiar edges of Anglo-Saxon words that demanded more spit than modern English.

“The poem,” he said, “is about two people separated from each other. A small life comes between them, carried to the darkest part of the woods. What does Wulf deliver that night? It could be a child, a pup, or a
giedd
. A shared riddle. The vocabulary frustrates us at every turn, refusing to decide even on a species. We’re given only a thicket, rainy
weather, the coming of a distant lord. ‘Ungelic is us,’ says Eadwacer. ‘It’s different with us.’ We’ll never know precisely what this means, or why they are.”