Stone of Tears

His curiosity, his dread, failed to overcome his stubborn silence. He and the Sister had not spoken since their last argument. He had not even slept in camp with her, preferring instead to spend his watch, and the rest of the night, hunting and sleeping with Gratch. Sister Verna’s angry silence was, at last, no match for his. He had no intention, this time, of being the one to make amends. They both contented themselves with looking at anything but each other.

Opening into sunlight, the road widened, splitting in the distance around a striated pyramid. Richard frowned, trying to see what made it look the way it did—a dotted, pale tan, with darker bands at evenly spaced intervals up its sides. He judged its height at three times his eye level from where he sat atop Bonnie.

As they approached, he realized the mound was constructed entirely of bones. Human bones. The dotted tan parts were skulls, and the bands were leg and arm bones placed end-out in layers. He guessed there must be tens of thousands of skulls in the orderly heap. He stared as they rode past; Sister Verna didn’t seem to take notice.

Beyond the bone pile, the wide road led into a plaza of a dark and hazy city in the middle of the thick forest. The flat hilltop had been cleared of every tree, as had the terraced fields they had passed not an hour before.

The fields looked to be in preparation for planting. The ground was freshly turned, and there were stick people to scare away the birds when the seed was planted. It was winter, yet here, in this place, people planted. Richard thought it a wonder.

Rather than feeling open, this vast city, cleared of every bit of green that surrounded it, seemed even more closed and dark than the tunneled road. Buildings were square, with flat roofs, and faced with dingy plaster the color of bark. Near the roofs, and at each floor level, the ends of support logs stuck from the plastered walls. Windows were small, with never more than one in a wall. The buildings varied in height, but most were attached into irregular blocks. The tallest must have had four floors. None had the slightest variation in style, other than their height.

Haze and woodsmoke obscured the sky and the buildings in the distance. The plaza seemed simply an open place around a well in the center, and was the only open area of any size. It quickly terminated in narrow, dark streets with smooth walls rising up to each side, creating man-made chasms. Overhead, many of the blocky buildings bridged the streets, making them dark tunnels, and where there were none of the bridging buildings overhead, wash hung on lines between opposing windows. Some streets were cobblestone, but most were mud, running with fetid water.

People in drab, loose-fitting clothes filled the narrow streets, walked barefoot through the mud, stood with their arms folded, watching, or sat in groups in doorways. Women carrying clay water jugs on their heads, balanced with the aid of a single hand, moved tight against the walls to make room for the three horses. They made their way to and from the well in indifferent silence as Richard and Sister Verna passed.

A few older men sat in wide doorways, or leaned against walls. The men wore brimless, straight-sided, round, dark, flat-topped hats, with strange markings in light colors that looked to have been painted on with fingers. Many of the men smoked thin-stemmed pipes. Conversation fell silent as Richard and Sister Verna passed, and all watched the two strangers and three horses moving by. Some idly tugged on the long, dangling earrings they wore in their left ears.

Sister Verna led the way through the narrow streets, taking them deeper into the maze of drab buildings. When they at last reached a wider cobblestone street, she halted, turned to him, and spoke in quiet warning.

“These people are the Majendie. Their land is a vast, crescent-shaped swath of forests. We must travel the length of their land, all the way to the point of the horn of their land. They worship spirits. Those skulls we saw back there were sacrifices to their spirits.

“Though they hold foolish beliefs which are reprehensible, we do not have the power to change them. We need to pass through their land. You will do as they ask, or our skulls will end up with all the others on that pile.”

Richard refused to give her the satisfaction of an answer or an argument. He sat with his hands folded over the pommel of his saddle and without emotion watched her until she finally turned away and started out once more.

After passing under a low bridge building, they entered a slightly dished, open square. Perhaps a thousand men milled about or clustered in small groups. Like the other men he had seen, these all wore the one long, dangling earring, though on the right side instead of the left. They also all wore short swords and black sashes. Unlike the other men, none of these wore hats on their shaved heads.