A Chime for These Hallowed Bones (Chapter 11, Part 2)
“Something tells me that was supposed to be locked,” Rajeev said.
The snide remark jolted Yadleen free of her shock. She pushed the door. It eased open, revealing the shop that occupied the front half of townhouse’s ground floor.
Aside from the sunlight that now spread across the threshold, the only light came from the jade ghostfire of the warrior-wight. It stood behind the shop’s counter, positioned such that it could see through the door into the back storeroom to watch both the rear entrance and the staircase. The wight held its bamboo stave in a ready stance, and its burning eye sockets were fixed on the front door. Seeing Yadleen, it relaxed and plant the butt of the stave on the floor.
“Did someone break in?” Rajeev asked, leaning in too close as he peered past Yadleen.
“The warrior-wight wouldn’t just be standing there if someone had.” Yadleen stepped inside to put some distance between them. “It would have neutralized the intruder, flagged down a patrol, and reported the crime. The last person who came to check up on the warrior-wight must have forgotten to lock up. I think it was Lavanya who came last month. It’s the sort of mistake she’d make.”
The excuses flowed freely, yet Yadleen’s heart was in her throat. Lavanya would have used the back door. All of them did, since the task was simple maintenance work. Coming in the front would signal to the whole marketplace that the townhouse was being occupied once more.
Squatters might do that. It would be risky, but that kind of confidence would sell the lie that they were legitimate tenants.
It had happened before. Not at one of Master Baig’s properties, of course, but Yadleen had heard stories. Back-alley necromancers sometimes broke into empty houses to feign association with the recognized necromancer who owned the property. Someone had been keeping the place clean enough for necromancy. The air smelled stringent, and the dust she’d seen when she’d last checked on the warrior-wight was gone.
But how could squatters pacify the warrior-wight?
“This wight recognized you and stood down, without you needing any special signals,” Rajeev noted. “Does it not have the same restrictions that Cyrus does?”
Yadleen turned around. Rajeev hadn’t followed her inside. Instead, he’d backed up and was now frowning at the second-story windows.
“There’s a massive difference between commanding a wight and being recognized by it,” Yadleen said. She fished the finger-cymbals from her sleeve. “I’ll ask the bhūta inside it who’s been here.”
“Someone’s upstairs. Why not ask them?”
Rajeev surged over the threshold. He blew past Yadleen before she could react. The labor-wight dutifully followed, knocking her to the floor.
The warrior-wight engaged the obvious threat. It allowed Rajeev to dodge around it before lashing out with its stave. The blow cracked the labor-wight across the frontal bone. The labor-wight’s turban cushioned the blow and kept its skull from shattering, yet it still collapsed to the floor and began convulsing. The warrior-wight planted the stave on the back of the labor-wight’s neck, pinning it.
Yadleen heard Rajeev’s feet pounding on the stairs. She staggered upright and commanded the warrior-wight to follow her. Before she’d finished tapping out these orders, there came a cry of dismay, a cascade of metallic crashes, and a body slamming into the floor above. She rushed to the stairs.
The first thing she noticed upon reaching the second level was the flensing equipment. Three maceration vats and a large jar containing hide beetles occupied a work bench along the left wall. Next, she took in the piles of animal bones stacked on tables near the windows. Along the right wall were stacks of cages filled with tiny beast-wights: frogs, snakes, rats, cats, and doves. Several of the cages had toppled to the floor. Their inhabitants rolled about within the metal mesh, whimpering indignantly in softer versions of Cyrus’s ghostly moan.
Rajeev was among the fallen cages, straddling a figure in a red turban. He clutched a strange, matte green tube in his hand. One end of the tube was jammed into the turbaned figure’s neck.
“Stay back!” Rajeev warned Yadleen. “Don’t let it make eye contact with you!”
“You’re making eye contact with me,” the figure remarked, with casual indignation of someone pointing out a moldy peach among fresh fruit.
The tension drained out of Yadleen. “By the Chorus … Akal? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” Akal tried to crane his head to look at her, but Rajeev ground the tube deeper into his neck. “Haaye! The real question is, what are you doing here? You’re early!”
“‘Early?’” Yadleen repeated.
“Don’t you need to get some paperwork in order, or something like that? I should have had a few days to clear out!”
“Shut up!” Rajeev snarled. “This is a magnesium flare, you nameless filth! You know what that is, don’t you? What it can do to a rakshasa?”
Yadleen only half-heard this threat. She scrutinized the cages more closely. There were misshapen chimeras among the forms of natural creatures: winged snakes lay listlessly in their enclosures, and what appeared to be a yearling goat with a cat’s skull pawed at the lock on its cage's door. She sighed heavily.
“Let him up, Rajeev,” she said. “He’s not a rakshasa, or whatever you think he is. Akal’s just running experiments behind Babaji’s back.”
Rajeev finally took his eyes off Akal and looked around the room. Yadleen could have sworn that his face flushed for a moment. Rather than admit to his obvious mistake, he doubled down. “What, because he’s set this place up for us? You have no idea how far rakshasas will go to play a role, do you? This is exactly what a Hegemony spy would do to throw someone off their scent!”
“Your people are the ones spying on everyone, not the Hegemony.” Yadleen raised the cymbals. “Get off him, or the warrior-wight will make you get off.”
The silence stretched. Rajeev looked past Yadleen, to where the warrior-wight now lurked at the top of the stairs. He slowly withdrew the tube from Akal’s neck and tucked it back under his tunic before he stood up. There was a pained pause before he offered Akal his hand.
Akal graciously allowed Rajeev to pull him to his feet. Dusting himself off, he said, “No harm done, Cousin. You just startled me a bit.”
Yadleen punched Akal in the arm.
“Haaye!” Akal yelped again.
“Master Baig told you to stop this nonsense!” Yadleen berated him.
“No, Babaji said …” Akal cleared his throat before rumbling, “‘Get this rubbish out of my sight!’”
“Don’t you care how much trouble you’ll get him into if you’re caught?”
“What, exactly, is he doing that Babaji wouldn’t approve of?” Rajeev interjected.
Akal answered before Yadleen could silence him. “I’m unraveling Atreya’s Principle.”
Rajeev stared at him blankly before looking to Yadleen. “He’s doing what?”
“Atreya’s Principle states that all the bones for a wight need to come from individuals who are as physically similar as possible,” she explained. “Size, age, sex, and of course, species. Otherwise –”
“Babaji’s proven that false already. Cyrus’s tusks aren’t the original ivory. They’re –” Akal bit his tongue and jumped out of the way to avoid another swat from Yadleen.
“Otherwise the bhūtas won’t properly bond to the bones,” Yadleen went on. “It’s why you don’t see necromancers creating fantastical monsters using whatever bones happen to be available. A wight can either be a passable reconstruction of whatever provides its bones, or it can be a crude mechanism or shell that offers the bhūta no functional mobility. There’s no middle ground.”
Akal sniffed. “Not with that attitude, there isn’t.”
“This fool thinks he can bend Atreya’s Principle further than Master Baig has,” Yadleen finished.
Rajeev chewed on that in silence. He circled around the room to study the cages, the piles of bones, and the cleaning equipment. “You said that would get Babaji in trouble. Why? It sounds like the Hegemony would embrace this work. This would let you replace the dragon-wights we destroyed in the Great War. How many does Kabarāhira even have left? One? Two?”
Yadleen considered correcting him. The number of dragon-wights that survived the conflict was at least five. However, Rajeev was right about Kabarāhira’s inability to replace them. Dragon bones were now prohibitively rare. Assembling a functional skeleton was impossible.
“That’s why the Atreya’s Principle would be the biggest breakthrough in necromancy since the Naga’s death,” Akal agreed. “Babaji’s just worried that we don’t have permission. ‘Rules exist for good purposes.’ ‘Secrets preserve the peace.’ ‘The chakram’s edge goes all the way around.’ The usual things he says to scare apprentices who have no idea what they’re doing. I know what I’m doing.”
“It’s still illegal,” Yadleen chided him.
Akal waved dismissively. “Only to dissuade back-alley necromancers.”
“How will that look for Babaji if his blood relative, a man he trained, is caught breaking that law?”
“It’s not like I’d get Unnamed, Yadleen.”
“It’d still shame him.”
“Not with the progress I’m making. The Vizier of Harmony will step in and claim credit for commissioning me. After all, the Hegemony wants more dragon-wights. I'll get my own ossuary, and the High Necromancer will be tasked with inspecting my work. Babaji will be twice honored, once as my master and again for being the man who ensures my work meets the highest standards.” Akal shrugged. “Given how you wouldn’t have caught me if you’d given me time to clear out, I’d say I’m pretty well at avoiding detection.”
“You have more than twenty wights bound in here, and no wind chimes to keep unbound bhūtas out. They’ll talk.”
“Oh, Yadleen.” Akal smirked. “You have no idea.”
She bristled. “What’s that supposed to –”
“I’m sorry to interrupt your bickering,” Rajeev cut in, “but … let me see if I have this all straight … You’re engaged in experiments that would strengthen the military might of the Hegemony … behind Babaji’s back … and yet he happened to tell you that we’d be coming to the exact place where your laboratory is?”
Akal scoffed. “Cousin, Babaji never needs to tell me things.”
“Then there’s no one who can confirm that the real Akal Baig knew we’d be coming here.” Rajeev’s hand drifted behind his back, to where he'd tucked that tube.
Thank you for reading! Chapter 11 Part 3 arrives October 16th!
If you’d like to learn more about the Kimian Empire, you can find more stories here!