The Reign of Magic. Wolf Awert

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      Esara was lost for words at this, so she simply continued explaining the various bones and their properties. “This bone is home, your house, your village and all houses, buildings and squares where people live. And it’s very important which side is up, but even more important is the way the bones lie in relation to each other.”

      From that evening onwards Nill played with the oracle-bones as often as he could, and Esara let him. But one evening he startled her with the words: “Your bones aren’t good. When I’m big I will get you better ones. Every bone should come from a different animal and from a different place. Good bones should have seen the world.”

      It was not Nill’s words that made Esara blanch. It was the dancing rune stones on the Stone of Prophecy. Having been tossed, they no longer came to a halt. Some just quivered on the spot, others turned in circles, and the bone for Home was slowly crawling towards the Grand Regent.

      Esara took the oracle-bones away from Nill. “Never play with the symbols again,” she said harshly. “It’s far too dangerous. Never tell anyone that you have ever even touched an oracle-bone.”

      “Why not?” Nill asked, entirely innocently.

      “Oracle-bones lie dormant until they are called upon. They awaken in the truth-teller’s hand when they are tossed, and they find rest anew on the Stone of Prophecy, where they will say what needs to be said.”

      “That’s not possible,” Nill exclaimed. “My bones always move. When I lift the bag, when I toss them and when they’ve landed on the stone. They stop when I tell them to stop.”

      “Dancing bones tell you that the future is not decided yet. It isn’t wise to keep reminding fate that it has unfinished business it should be taking care of.”

      Esara’s fingers were shaking as she collected the bones one at a time and dropped them back into the bag.

      “But you keep reminding me of things I have to take care of.”

      “That is completely different. Do you honestly believe that you’re above fate?”

      “Why not? There must be something that tells fate what to do.” Nill felt very strong and bold, and nothing could have frightened him in that moment, but Esara glared angrily at him.

      “Fool. Only a fool will challenge that which he doesn’t know, and an even greater fool doesn’t see who decides over his life.”

      I decide over my own life, Nill thought, with all the hubris of youth, but didn’t dare say the words out loud. Esara’s face was far too serious. Instead, he decided to tackle the situation differently and asked: “Does that happen, though, that a human doesn’t have a future and it only happens much later?”

      He felt like he was about to discover a great secret.

      Everything about Esara’s face showed that this question distressed her, for future and fate, time and destiny are still secrets to the truth-teller, and she knew that one wrong word could change an entire life. With great effort she forced an answer.

      “No, everyone has a future, but sometimes it can be several futures or fate can decide not to share the knowledge. Fate does not always want people to know its plans. Truth-tellers know this and have to accept that things happen as they do.”

      But truth-tellers did not know that. Esara had lied. Sometimes it could happen that a truth-teller read the signs wrong, or that the vision was unclear and hazy, but oracle-bones that refused to come to a halt was something she had never seen in her life. All security had left her, because a future that did not exist was as the chaos before the making of the world. She tried her utmost to keep this terrible secret from Nill, and pretended the dancing bones to be little more than an annoyance. But she could not fool Nill. He had seen the gray pallor of her skin, the thin layer of shining sweat on her brow. He did not have to glance at her shaking hands to realize how disturbed she was.

      It was one of those long evenings when nobody could tell when the day was over and the night began. The sun had gone down but still shone a red light into the dark blue night sky, and only rarely was one of the stars visible beyond the thin shroud of clouds.

      Nill retreated along with his thoughts and fell asleep over them. Esara waited for the moon, for she had questions to ask before she went to sleep, but the moon seemed to have been caught in the clouds. It became later and later, and Esara’s last glance of the night was towards her fitfully sleeping boy.

      Neither mother nor son witnessed the clouds finally break apart, upon which a pale yellow moon shone down. They could not have enjoyed the stars for long, either, because soon the mists began to waken in the flatlands and sloughs, sneaking into the village as they always did, spying into every stable and every hut that let them in.

      The only place the mist could not go was Esara’s flower-house. As the fog hid the starlight, the emissions from Grovehall kept the mists away. Slowly a grayish-yellow smoke began to rise from the flattened earth, along the roots of the whisper-willows and the low-alders, more massive than the thin mist in the coolness of the night, more hectic than the quivering branches of the willows. While the damp air still caressed the animals and the scents of the evening dissolved into tiny water-beads, a foul, fusty smell broke through the earth of Esara’s house, with hints of sulfur and tar. And in the veils and swirls of this smoke, where it condensed for a few short moments, the first outline of a figure became visible.

      Nill tossed and turned on the ram skins. The first fumes reached him and covered him. The smoke interrupted the deep, regular breaths of the sleeping boy and turned them into a hoarse, hasty cough, tearing at Nill’s lungs. Nill coughed and retched, screamed and leapt from his bed, his dagger held in his right fist.

      He could not tell whether the smoke was surrounding the figure or was indeed part of it. Grayish-yellow streaks wafted over the mighty tusks of a huge battle-boar, its skull adorned with curved horns. The thick neck and muscular torso were mostly human, apart from two ridiculously small, red wings sprouting from the back. The hands ended in long, scythe-like claws and tore through the air like singing swords. But what made Nill’s gut cramp up were the creature’s legs. Strong, furry thighs from the hips downwards reminded him of wooly buffaloes, tapered down to giant feet that looked like they belonged to a bird of prey. The closer to the foot the fur got, the more it solidified and stuck together, forming horny scales, and below the knee it became a steely armoring. The feet were armed with rough, dark yellow talons, three pointing forwards and one backwards. A whipping tail, long enough to reach the creature’s own head, ended in a barbed point: a terrible weapon, combining the capabilities of a hook-spear and a whip. Talons and tusks, barbs and claws, strength, mass and wildness were opposed by nothing but the boy’s dagger for the protection of Grovehall and his life.

      Nill thrust and his dagger sliced through the creature’s outstretched arm, merely disturbing the smoky swirls. The whip-tail with its metal barb circled through the air with a howl, passing through the walls of the hut as though they weren’t there, and wrapped itself around Nill’s chest. Nill felt icy cold and fiery heat at once. But the tail dissolved on the surface of his body, disappearing into his flesh and reforming behind him. The smoke became murkier and denser. It stopped swirling and started to drip like oil. Nill let out another scream. His battle-cry of anguish and anger with the light, penetrating sound of his young voice made the creature jerk up its head. It roared back at him. Dull, but from the depths of its body it aimed the roar at the boy. It was the sound of chaos, shaped, but not yet words. The sounds marked the beginning of feelings, while destroying all thought. The roar blasted through Nill’s head, surged down his spine, tumbled in his СКАЧАТЬ