Rags & Bones Read online

  She had very fine legs. I may have admired them for a moment or two, before she interrupted the direction of my thoughts, which I must confess were running along the lines of the two of us being alone in the compartment, and the interior blinds, which could be drawn, and why such a beautiful, shining woman would intrude upon my compartment in particular, even though of course it is not entirely unusual that beautiful women throw themselves upon … why do you chuckle, Sir Knight? Not all women favor height and splendid mustaches, and the obvious phallic overcompensation and fascination with swords … and yes, daggers like that one, which I do not want thrust through my hand, thank you. This hand that has written a hundred … well, ninety books … and has many more to write! Thank you, Master Puppet. I would be grateful if you could keep your … your comrade contained.

  So. She was in the compartment, beautiful, illuminated, and semi-naked. Obviously a sorceress of some kind, I presumed, or a priestess, perhaps of Daje-Onkh-Arboth, they tend to be lit up in a similar fashion. I had no idea then what she actually was, you understand.

  She smiled at me, winked, and sat down on the cushions opposite.

  “Tell them you haven’t seen me, and put me in your pocket,” she said, very sultry and promising. “It shall be to your advantage.”

  “Tell who—” I started to ask, but she shrank away before my very eyes, and in a matter of moments there was no longer a shining woman on the cushion, but a small figurine of jade, or some similar greenstone, no taller than my thumb. Now, as you can plainly see, I am a man of the world who has seen a great deal more than most, but never anything like that. I picked up the figure, and was further surprised to find it very cold, as cold as a scoop of ice from the coolth-vendors you may have seen along the street here, offering their wares to chill a drink or a feversome brow.

  I put her in my pocket, the deep inner one of my outer coat, where I keep a selection of pencils, an inkstone, and other odds and ends of the writer’s trade. It was none too soon, for there was a commotion outside only a few seconds later, with a great clattering of armor and the usual unnecessary shouting of military folk, the roar of battle mounts and the like, all of which I understood immediately to be the sudden arrival of some force bent on intercepting the conveyance, which meant more stopping and greater delay. I was not pleased, I tell you, and even less so when two rude troopers flung open the compartment door, waved a pistol and a sword in my face, and by means of emphatic gestures and strange, throat-deep grunts, demanded that I alight.

  Naturally, I refused, pointing out to them that there were numerous treaties guaranteeing the inviolate nature of the Unstoppable Cartway, and that by interfering with it they were risking war with no less than three city-states, and the Kingdom of Aruth, admittedly a great distance away at the terminus, and not only these polities but also the parent company of the Cartway, which they might not know was the Exuberant Order of Holy Commerce, well known for its mercenary company business, in addition to its monopoly on Hrurian nutmeg, the original source of the order’s wealth, which by curious chance—

  Your interruptions, sir, delay matters far more than my minor educational digressions. Yet I protest in vain, as in fact occurred with these other soldiers. After they had dragged me out quite forcibly, I ascertained that in fact they were deaf-mutes, directed solely by a sign language that I did not know, involving numerous finger flicks from their officer. This fellow, from his ill-fitting gun-metal cuirass and the crushed plumes of his helmet, was clearly more priest than soldier, the armor worn over robes of an aquamarine hue flecked with silver bristles, here and there showing silver buttons that were embossed with the heads of two women, one gazing left, the other right, and apparently sharing the same neck. I did not immediately recognize this outfit, but then there are many gods in the Tollukheem Valley, some with multiple orders of followers.

  “Have you seen Her?” asked the officer, the capital “H” readily apparent in his speech.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The Goddess,” said the officer. The capital “G” was also very evident.

  “What goddess?”

  “Our Goddess. Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant One.”

  I must admit that upon hearing this description the jade figurine felt suddenly very much heavier in my pocket, and I felt a similar chill around my heart. But I gave no sign of this, nor of the slight unease that was beginning to spread in the region of my bowels.

  “Am I to understand you have lost a goddess?” I said to the officer, with a yawn. “I am afraid I have never heard of your Pikgnil-Yuddra. Now, I trust you will not be delaying the Cartway for very long?”

  “Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant,” corrected the officer, with a frown. “You are very ignorant, for our Goddess is the light that does not fail, the illuminatrix of the city of Shrivet, and verily for leagues and leagues about the city!”

  “Shrivet … Shrivet … ” I pondered aloud. “But that is at least a hundred leagues from here. I take it the illumination does not extend that far? I believe here we fall under the aegis of the god of Therelle, the molerat-digger Gnawtish-Gnawtish?”

  I made the molerat godlet up, of course, for my own amusement. That part of the world is so infested with little godlets that no one could know them all, and as the soldiers were from Shrivet, which was indeed a great distance away, they would have no clue.

  “Other gods do not concern us,” said the officer. “Only our own. She must be here somewhere, we were only an hour at most behind her chariot.”

  “Chariot?” I asked. I looked around, hoping to see it, for I was naturally curious about what style of chariot a luminous goddess might drive, and what manner of locomotion might propel it, or beasts draw it.

  “Crashed half a league back,” said the officer. “But near the track of this … this … ”

  He gestured at the carriages of the Cartway, and the ten mokleks harnessed in line, with their mahouts standing by their heads and the guards in the howdahs watching the temple soldiers search with surprising equanimity or possibly cowardice—certainly they had made no attempt to intervene. There were more guards by the rear carriage, and the conductor-major herself, but they were even more relaxed, offering wine to another priestly officer.

  “It is called the Unstoppable Cartway,” I said. “Though clearly it is neither unstoppable nor do the mokleks draw carts, but luxurious carriages. I believe in its infancy, carts were drawn, carrying a regular cargo of foodstuffs from Durlal to Orthaon, and manufactured goods on the return—”

  The officer was, as might have been expected, uninterested in learning more. He interrupted me most rudely.

  “Have you seen the Goddess?”

  “I don’t know,” I countered. “I am traveling alone in my compartment, a blessed luxury, but I confess I have looked out the window from time to time, and upon several occasions have seen women.”

  “You would not mistake her for a mortal woman,” snapped the officer. “She is bright with virtue, her light constant, a shining star to guide correct behavior.”

  “No, I can’t say I’ve seen anyone like that,” I said. By this point I had noticed that while everyone had been rousted from their compartments, there were no individual searches taking place and the general ambience had become more relaxed as the Goddess was not found within the carriages. There seemed only a small chance that the jade figurine would be found upon my person, and I must confess that I was intrigued by this search for a goddess, even more than I was interested in her physical charm.

  “Does your Goddess regularly take … ah … unscheduled journeys?”

  “Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant does not leave the city ever,” said the officer firmly. “Only Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness may leave the city.”

  I confess that a slight frown may have moved across my brow at this point. Discussing godlets with their priests is often fraught with difficulty, and this search for a goddess who had not left, or who possibly had, but under a different name, was very much in keeping w
ith the tradition of godlets who did not at all correspond to their priesthood’s teachings or texts.

  “I’m not sure I follow,” I said. “You are searching a hundred leagues from Shrivet for a goddess who does not leave the city ever, and there is another goddess who does leave the city but you are not searching for her?”

  “They are the twin Goddesses of Day and Night,” said the officer. “Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant may not leave the city, and Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness may not enter, save at certain festivals. A week ago, the temple was discovered to be empty, the warders slain, the bounds broken, and Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant was no longer housed there.”

  “So it is Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant you are looking for?”

  “We seek the Goddess in both aspects,” said the officer. “For it may be the doing of Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness that has unhoused Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant, in their eternal struggle for the souls of the people of our city.”

  “I see,” I said, though to be accurate, the only thing I saw was yet another idiotic priest, a member of a hierarchy that was preserving their authority by drawing upon the power of an imprisoned extra-dimensional intrusion that had become anthropomorphized by long association with mortals. Yes, unlike the great majority of the deluded people who populate this world, I do not think of them as gods or godlets. Indeed, it has been theorized that should a mortal here be somehow introduced to some other plane of existence, there they too would have the powers and attributes seen here as godlike. But I speak to those who know far more than I, if indeed you are as I believe you to be, agents of that ancient treaty—ah, you are a barbarian, Sir Knight, to so interrupt civilized discourse in the interest of what you like to call the bare facts. I will continue.

  Suffice to say that after some show of searching and questioning, the priestly soldiers departed and the Cartway continued. Shortly after the cries of the mahouts had ceased and the mokleks had stretched out to their full shamble, our conveyance traveling at a remarkable speed only slightly slower than a battlemount’s lope, I felt a stirring in my coat pocket. Reaching in, I withdrew the jade figurine and set it upon the seat at my side, whereupon a few moments later it once again became an alluring woman, or rather goddess, though this time she kept her radiance dimmed to the extent that she merely glowed with the luster one finds inside the better kind of oyster shell, one likely to provide a pearl.

  “So, you are a runaway goddess, to wit, one Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant,” I said conversationally as she rearranged her rhuskin, not for modesty, I might add, but rather to show off those beautiful limbs to even greater advantage.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I am, of course, Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness. But you can call me Yuddra.”

  “I am slightly confused,” I replied. “The priest-officer said that it was your, ahem, counterpart—”

  “Sister,” corrected Yuddra. “You might say we are twins.”

  “Your sister, then, who had become unhoused and traveling. Also, if you are the Darkness, why are you illuminated?”

  “There is no difference between us,” replied Yuddra, stretching her arms up toward the padded ceiling—padded these last twelve years, I might add, since the unfortunate overturning of a carriage that was inhabited by the Prince-Incipient of Enthemo, resulting in his crown being forced down over his ears, the ceiling back then being considerably harder—a stretch that made me catch my breath, I confess. I reached out to her, and to my extreme disappointment, found my hand passing through the waist I had hoped to encircle, Yuddra proving no more substantial than a wisp of steam.

  “There is no difference between us,” repeated Yuddra. “In fact, we have swapped roles many times over the past millennia. Sometimes I stay in the temple, sometimes Pikgnil does.”

  “But now you are both wandering,” I said, essaying to lift her hand to plant a courteous kiss, but with the same result as my previous attempt. “Out of your temple, far from your power, and pursued by your priesthood. What has brought you to this pass?”

  She smiled at me and leaned in close, with just as much effect as if she were normal flesh and blood, perhaps even more so, given that the tantalization of not being able to touch is well known as an erotic accentuator, one employed to great effect in the theater of … yes, yes, you know what I’m talking about, I’m sure, puppet excepted.

  “Just such a matter as now concerns us both,” she said. “I am jade and air, and have always been so, save for brief periods of corporeality. My sister, as always, is the same, and both of us … want more.”

  “So you are able to assume a fleshly form?” I asked, this being the chief part of her speech that I had taken in. “For some short time?”

  “Yes,” said Yuddra. “But it is difficult. Pikgnil and I want to permanently assume mortal form, so that we may experience in full the experiences we have heretofore only … tasted.”

  “What do you require to assume a mortal form?” I asked, being driven by curiosity as always. “For those short periods, I mean.”

  “Blood,” said Yuddra, and smiled again, showing her delicate, finely pointed teeth. “Mortal blood. A few clavelins might grant me an hour, but where to find a willing donor? It must be given freely, you see.”

  A clavelin? A small bottle, about so tall, so round, commonly used here for young wine. Not an excessive amount and, though I am no barber-surgeon, I knew that a man could lose more blood than that without fear of faintness.

  “I should be happy to oblige Your Divinity,” I said. Long caution caused me to add, “Two clavelins of blood and no more, I can happily spare, and indeed I would welcome a charming and touchable companion to lessen the drear of this journey.”

  She smiled again and agreed that such a diversion would be pleasant, that in fact a great part of her desire to assume a permanent mortal form was to engage in just such activities as I suggested, but on a more regular basis. I must confess that I had expected her to use those sharp teeth to draw my blood in the manner of those creatures some call the vampire, but rather she had me use my penknife to make a cut on my hand, and allow blood to drip into the saucer of one of the teacups provided by the Cartway, along with the samovar that had been bubbling away since Orthaon. As I let the drops of blood fall, Yuddra licked the liquid from the saucer, very daintily, after the fashion of a cat. As she consumed the blood, I saw her grow more corporeal, the pearly light fading and her skin becoming … real, I suppose, though still extraordinarily beautiful.

  I shall draw the shades on the window of this retelling, as I drew the actual shades in the carriage. Suffice to say that time passed all too quickly, and far too soon I found her growing once again incorporeal, though there was a curious pleasure to be derived when she was neither truly there nor entirely not. I believe she also found the time well spent, Sir Knight, so you can wipe that small smirk from your face. I have studied the works of the great lover Hiristo of Glaucus, and practiced much therein, up to page one hundred and seventy-seven, and there is a young widow who resides near me who has agreed that we shall together essay the matter of pages one hundred and seventy-eight to eighty-four—

  Yes! I am getting on with it. The blinds were drawn up, the Goddess sat opposite, the sun shone in, and we had got another dozen leagues closer to Durlal. I made a cup of tea, the black leaf from the Kaz coast, not the green from Jinqu, and made further inquiries of Yuddra, if indeed she was that sister.

  “So you wish to no longer be a goddess, but to become permanently mortal?”

  “I do,” said Yuddra, eyeing my steaming cup of tea with a wolfish, hungry look. “I have not, for example, ever tasted that drink you have. There are so many tastes, so many experiences that are beyond the purely energistic to savor, as I would do!”

  “But tell me, how is it that you will become mortal?” I asked. “Surely not by the imbibing of blood, for if two clavelins amounts to but an hour, then the supply required to maintain corporeality would be … monstrous, and not likely to be freely given.”

&
nbsp; She laughed and tossed her head back.

  “Pikgnil has found a way, or so she said in her last missive. I am to meet her at Halleck’s Cross, and then we are to make our way to … but perhaps I should not tell you, for despite our embraces, I fear you are not entirely sympathetic to my cause.”

  There she glanced at the ring I wear, which, as you see, shows the sign of the compass, the mark of my order. I was a little surprised that she should be so worldly as to recognize the sign, and beyond that, have some understanding of the strictures, yet only a little, else she would have understood that I would have no wish to stand in the way of a god who desired mortality, believing as I do that we mortals must be paramount over gods, that it is our works that will endure, when the last godlet is thrust back to whence it came. I believe this is a more extreme view than you share yourselves, for I understand you have fooled yourselves with definitions, gods deemed beneficial or trivial, and gods malevolent and harmful, to be destroyed or banished. We consider them all a pest, to be gotten rid of at any opportunity. Though use may be made of them first, of course.

  “It is true I do not care for gods,” I told her. “But as you wish to become mortal, I shall consider you a mortal and not my enemy. Provided your aim does not require the desanguination of many people by trickery, for example.”

  “No, it does not involve blood,” said Yuddra. She shifted near the window, and looked out. “I think we near Halleck’s Cross and here I must leave you. Please, do not speak of our tryst, indeed even of our meeting, for we must remain free of the temple, and they have many spies and paid informants.”