Chapter Twenty-Three #3
It was done. An immense bird stood on powerful legs ending in long, grasping claws, turning its great unseeing skull from side to side and snapping at the air.
It unfolded its new wings, the span of them almost touching the walls of the colossal cavern to either side.
It could have been the skeleton of a dragon from myth, with those dreadful wings and claws, if it weren’t for the ivory beak arching from beneath its eye sockets.
It opened that beak now and made a hollow knocking sound—the closest thing to a voice it could summon.
Patrick was dead white, his eyes even greener than usual in the reflected light from the bone bird.
“Well,” he whispered, his mouth dry. “That’s new.”
I could have curled up on the bare stone and slept for a hundred years, but I got to my feet and walked towards the bird, which swung its immense head towards me on that long, ridged neck, and lowered its empty eyes to mine.
I rested my forehead against its skull, reaching my hands up to cup its bony cheeks.
Baldbeak hopped along my arm and touched his beak to that of the giant bird in tentative greeting.
“It will carry us,” I said without turning. “Let’s go.”
“You mean … ride on …”
“Of course. How else were you planning to get out of here?” I moved to the bird’s side and used its ribcage to climb up onto its spine, sitting between one enormous vertebra and the next as if the scoop of bone between them was a makeshift saddle. Baldbeak perched on top of the skull. “Come on.”
Patrick hesitated, his gaze flickering from the eye sockets of the bone bird to my face. Then, clutching at the wound in his side, he heaved himself up behind me, finding a spot between two more knobs of the colossal spine.
“I would like to clarify that I absolutely do not like this,” he said through gritted teeth. “And how is this … this thing going to fly us back through the tunnels? It’s far too big.”
“It isn’t going to fly us back,” I said. “It is going to fly us out.”
I pointed upwards at the crumbling ceiling, now shedding dust like rain.
Soon larger clumps would fall, and then the whole roof would cave in.
“The ceiling is made of bones, and there are layers and layers of bones above it. I can feel them. I can’t keep the whole of the catacombs from falling in.
That’s too much, even for me. But I can direct the collapse, to some degree. If I open up the ceiling here …”
“Without bringing it down upon our heads, I assume.”
“… without bringing it down upon our heads, we can fly out before the catacombs collapse completely.”
I looked back at Patrick and saw an odd smile on his face. “What?”
“Just … Your Hair is swirling about your face, and you’re wielding bone magic on top of a giant skeletal bird. It’s quite the picture.”
“This is a desperate escape attempt, Patrick, not an opportunity to flirt.”
“It can be two things.”
“Be quiet. I need to concentrate.”
Above us, the ceiling crumbled and came apart.
Blocks of stone and shards of bone rotated slowly in the air as a hole opened upward, stars winking at the very top.
The bone bird crouched and then sprang, spreading its vast wings and propelling itself upwards, past the wreckage that hung suspended, through the ruin of the Pontiff’s palace, and into the night sky that was only just showing a sliver of dawn on the horizon.
Beneath us, the city creaked and groaned as fissures opened in the earth where the tunnels were caving in.
There were shouts, and screams; flashes of flame where the crematoriums along the crumbling path broke open, and their great ovens cracked.
I concentrated, keeping the bones strong and straight in the tunnel walls, stopping the collapse under the city and instead directing the tunnels’ collapse to the walls and beyond, where Ban Morin’s men were laying siege.
His forces were about to have a very unpleasant surprise.
Behind me, I heard Patrick whispering his message to Baldbeak through bloodless lips.
The raven went wheeling through the air in search of another flock.
The message would spread to mages and practitioners across the city.
Many would be able to get out of the spreading veins of damage in time.
Some wouldn’t. A spiteful part of me hoped that the Pontiff, Milady, and Ban Morin were caught up in it all, or preferably crushed under the weight of a thousand crumbling bones.
“The palace!” Patrick shouted to me over the rushing air.
“What?”
“The king’s palace! It’s not in the path. We’ll be safe there.”
I looked down at the starry, scattered lights of the city.
The palace was easy to spot—a cluster of glims and lights in all those thousands of windows.
I bit my lip. It did seem like the safest place, especially if Ban Morin and the others were still out there—although they’d probably had enough of bone magic for one night.
But being in the king’s vicinity … Would Patrick try to persuade me again? Would the king? I didn’t have any better ideas, however, and although the bone bird seemed solid enough, I had uncomfortable visions of it disintegrating in midair if my hold on the magic failed.
A darker speck in the night sky became Baldbeak, flapping his way back to us. He landed between my hands where I clung to the creature’s neck, holding on with his claws without much trouble.
I made up my mind. It was a risk, but a small one compared to others I had taken.
I was not really sure how exactly I was steering the bone bird—it seemed to respond to my thoughts almost before I had thought them.
Now it changed course, slowly descending.
I felt some of the tension in Patrick’s body release behind me.
We were going to the palace.