10: His Holy Bones Read Online Free Page B

the other kahlirash’im watching him from the infirmary doorway. Sometimes he heard them offering prayers. Late in the evening, Sen’an brought John a bowl of boiled taye, bowing and apologizing to John for the poor quality of the meal.
    John assured him that he preferred coarse food to most of the more refined dishes. John thanked him and ate a few spoonfuls, but he felt guilty about enjoying the nourishment while Ravishan lay there unconscious at the edge of death. He pushed the bowl away and lay his head back down on Ravishan’s cot.
    Near midnight Wah’roa came for him. Another fire had erupted on the forth terrace. John spent the rest of the night devouring flames.
    Just after sunrise, he stood on the outer wall, taking a break from the heat and smoke. Soot streaked his whole body and saturated his clothes. He scooped up a handful of fresh snow and scrubbed it across his face, then stopped, momentarily surveying the sparkling white valley below. Now that the snow had disguised the shapes of bodies and broken machinery, John could almost find it beautiful, so long as he didn’t think about what lay beneath the surface.
    Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw the tiny shapes of riders approaching from the north. There were, perhaps, fifteen at first. But as he watched, more and more appeared over the rise of the hill. Even from the great distance they looked ragged. None wore uniforms. John thought that some of them might be wearing blankets rather than coats. Their tahldi straggled and stumbled through the wreckage of the valley. John caught sight of a group of people on foot as well. Then he noticed more, many of them hunched under the weight of packs, others leading goats on tethers. They were too disorganized to be Fai’daum, but they definitely looked like refugees of some kind. John wondered if they had come from Amura’hyym’ir. There was a chance that Lafi’shir and Fenn could be among them.
     Bells rang from the watchtowers and twenty of the kahlirash’im rode out to meet the people approaching Vundomu. John watched for a few moments, trying to pick out a familiar face from among the refugees. They were too many and all of them too far away. Several kahlirash’im dropped back to the people on foot and helped them up onto their tahldi.
    John headed back up to the temple. He climbed the walkways slowly, checking the stones and iron girders for flaws. As he walked between the makeshift animal pens on the sixth terrace a sudden screeching, rending noise tore through the air. The sick sensation of the ripping Gray Space washed over John from the seventh terrace. The ushiri’im were back.
    John bolted through the mud and wreckage. He charged up the walkway. He heard another shriek of the Gray Space and this time he smelled the burning ozone. They were in the temple.
    John wanted to move faster, to call down the wind and lightning, but he didn’t dare. He couldn’t assault Vundomu again. He sprinted through the street and took the temple steps in a single leap.
    John threw open the doors of the temple. A wild, cold wind rushed in with him. The dozens of people gathered inside scattered out of John’s way. They stared at him in terror. One young man dropped to the floor in front of the statue of the Rifter and sobbed. John looked around, but there was no sign of any ushiri’im.
    John rushed to the infirmary. Inside, it was quiet, but the smell of burned ozone rolled over John. John studied the room desperately for a faint distortion. The old priest slept in a chair. Ji sat beside one of the cots. She whispered something over a battered young boy. He closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep.
    “Is something wrong?” Ji looked up from the boy to John.
    “I felt the ushiri’im,” John told her.
    “It was only Fikiri.”
    “Oh.” John had forgotten about him. His panic dropped away, leaving behind a tired, foolish feeling. “Why was he here?”
    “Gathering information for Sabir,” Ji replied.