Dust
It’s only been a few hours since Berend became acquainted with the wall of bone, but it looks like wind and rain have been battering against it for centuries. The bones have turned the color of old parchment. Pores and cracks have opened up all along the lengths of each rib and femur, each dome of a skull, and all the knobbly ends of joints Berend can’t identify, piled up as they are. Under his feet, fragments of bone crack and crumble into dust.
A thick fog blankets the brief stretch of ground between the street and the wall, and it covers Berend’s good eye and muffles his ears. He’s maybe three steps past the temple when it disappears, lost in the morass of gray. The wall runs east to west, as far as he can remember, so he puts it on his left side and places one tired foot in front of the other. Even the eerie red light that made its home on the western horizon doesn’t penetrate the fog anymore.
How much time do we have? he wonders. It’s a foolish question—no one has the answer, not even the gods, and if he thinks about it, he’ll probably stop stark still and not be able to move again until the world finally does end.
He can’t see any eyes watching him through the gaps in the wall. That’s one small blessing. There’s only more fog, pouring over rib cages and between the paired bones of a dozen forearms. It smells like rain and rotting vegetation, a heavy, wet odor that seems almost to have a physical presence. An invisible weight presses down on Berend’s shoulders and around his chest. He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs and pushing the weight away, but it returns as soon as he exhales. The fog tastes sweet, like rainwater, but it turns bitter in the back of his throat.
His boots sink into the mud as he makes his way up the hill toward the city center, and a faint sucking sound follows him. He puts one hand on his sword, letting his fingers rest in the familiar grooves of the grip. Sure, it won’t help him against the thing lurking on the other side of the wall, nor will it do anything to a wayward ghost that decides to seek him out, but it’ll cut through anything corporeal, living or dead.
I don’t suppose Isabel’s silver sword would pierce one of those horrible eyes, he muses, not that he’s seen said weapon since Arden Geray’s house exploded. It was probably still under the rubble until West Gate vanished.
I have to stop trying to come up with a solution. I just need to get to the city center and back. Anything else can wait.
He knows that if there is an answer, he won’t be the one who thinks of it. This is all over his head and above his pay grade. He’ll be lucky if he happens to live another few hours.
Shouldn’t I be near the top of the hill by now?
At his side, the wall groans like the timbers of a ship in a storm. Somewhere above his head, dry bones crack like the report of a line of rifles. The sound moves away, fading into the fog, its echoes dampened to a soft patter. As far as Berend can see, which isn’t much farther than the reach of his arms, the wall still stands—for now.
He gathers his heavy wool coat around him and adjusts the bundle of clothing under his arm. He should have left it somewhere, he realizes now, because having one arm unavailable isn’t going to help him, but he doesn’t want to leave his good cloak and all of Isabel’s things in the mud. The existence of a parcel of dirty clothes implies a future where he can launder them, and one in which he finds Isabel and returns her belongings. As far as useless amulets go, he could do worse.
“Who goes there?”
Two human figures materialize from the fog, followed by a third behind them: man-shaped shadows, carrying faint, blurry lines that might be rifles and spears. They’re city watchmen. Probably.
Berend takes his hand from his sword and stretches his arms out wide. The bundle of clothing weighs down on his left. “Hello there!” he calls out. He didn’t think there would be guards here, this close to the wall where it’s hard to see one’s hand in front of one’s face. He’s well aware that not many of his fellow citizens are stupid and desperate enough to do exactly what he’s doing at this moment.
As if in response, another series of cracks splits the fog, loud enough to make Berend’s teeth hurt. A shower of bone dust, weighed down by the moisture in the air, falls onto his hat. A faint white shadow forms on the mud at his feet. He looks up, but the top of the wall wears the fog like a cloak.
With his arms still spread, he takes another step toward the guards. “I’m not here to trouble you, gentlemen. I have a friend in the city center, south of the council chambers, and I really need to check in on her.”
“No one is allowed into the city center,” the watchmen on Berend’s right says. His features emerge from the gray expanse as Berend approaches. He’s tall, dark-haired, and holding a rifle in both hands. A powder horn and a short sword hang from his belt.
Berend lowers his elbows to relieve the weight on his shoulders. He keeps his hands out. “I won’t be twenty minutes,” he says. It’s a generous estimate, particularly given that his direct route to Lady Breckenridge’s apartments may have transformed into a twisting labyrinth of dead ends and roundabouts over the past few hours, but he’s trying to put these armed men at ease. “I’d be happy for the company, if you feel the need to keep an eye on me.”
The wall cracks again, closer this time. Dust and splinters of bone litter the ground between Berend and the watchmen. He can feel their eyes on him as he steps away from the bones, slowly so as not to startle them. The last thing he needs is a femur to drop from the sky and knock him unconscious.
“Orders from the council,” the guard in the center says. He sounds far away, his voice muffled by the heavy air. “No exceptions.”
Berend’s eyes fall to the hilt of his sword. Its hard edges are clear and stark even in the unnatural mist. If he offered to leave it behind, would that be enough to persuade the watch to let him through? After everything he went through to get it back, he doesn’t think it would be worth it. Surely, in a city scrambled like an egg, there must be another way in.
It’s about when Berend has decided to wish these watchmen good day and good luck that the wall of bone bursts open.
He has just enough time to cover his face with his arms. A cloud of yellow-white dust envelops him, stinging his eyes and coating the inside of his mouth and nose. Bone shards beat against his hat and tangle in the fibers of his coat.
The thing beyond the wall screeches, reaching a crescendo so high-pitched that Berend can’t hear it. He can still feel it like fingers pressing into his ears and shaking his skull. He drops to his knees, pulling his hat down over his eyes, and he drops the bundle of clothes and puts both hands over his ears.
A distinctly human scream makes him look up. A wave of quivering tendrils has emerged from the bone wall, shaking in a nonexistent wind. Huge, multi-jointed fingers, each as tall as a man and gray as death, reach out ahead and grope blindly at the muddy ground. One swollen knuckle splits open, revealing a green eye with a pinpoint pupil.
That finger finds one of the watchmen in the fog. Huge and clumsy, it caresses him from shoulder to hip, leaving a bloody smear across his uniform in its wake. The red line spreads and deepens, revealing skin and muscle that peel away like an overripe fruit being squeezed. The man screams for only a second before it’s lost in chokes and gurgles and the wet squelching of raw meat being turned inside out. His ribs, wet and shiny, open up and fold out over the bloody mass, flexing exactly like bones shouldn’t.
Berend tears his eyes away and staggers to his feet. He hasn’t been the squeamish sort, not since the first time he saw a cannonball shatter a human being four months after he joined the Sons at twenty, but the world tilts and spins. His stomach turns with something like seasickness.
Just get away, he tells himself. You can vomit and pass out later.
His next step hits a wet patch of mud, and his foot flies out from under him, putting him back on his knees. He drops the bundle of clothing and crawls, his fingers gripping waterlogged grass.
One thin tendril, glowing with sickly green light, wiggles its way forward ahead of the advancing mass. Berend yanks his feet underneath him and stands, lurching forward a bare two steps, but it’s enough. The tendril lands on his abandoned bundle, which explodes into a cloud of fine, unspun fibers in black and red.
Berend runs, his hand on the hilt of his sword to keep it steady. The screams of the watchmen follow him for only a few paces before they are abruptly silenced. The sound of chattering teeth and cracking bone follows him.
His boots find hard ground—cobblestones, which he can see now that he’s away from the worst of the fog. The sharp corners of Mondirra’s central bank rise up ahead of him, and its granite columns follow. At the door, four more watchmen stand with rifles at the ready, a row of spiked wooden barriers lining the steps ahead of them.
Berend has his mouth open to call out to them before he remembers that he’s not supposed to be here. If they see him, all they’ll do is try to arrest him, and neither he nor they have the time for that. He ducks down a side street and forces his weak legs into a run.
The last of the fog dissipates, and a sliver of red evening sky comes into view between the overhanging buildings above him. Now, Berend can hear human voices, shouting over each other in an indistinguishable clamor.
He comes out of the alley and finds himself at the town square, where the watch has erected more barricades. A dozen guards stand before the council’s chambers, eyes narrowed as they look down the barrels of their rifles at the center of the plaza. Perhaps fifty people are gathered there, mostly women, some with children on their hips or grasped tightly by the hand. More watchmen form a ring around them, their spears like fence posts, keeping them in.
“Return to your homes,” another guard shouts over the crowd.
The wail of an infant answers him. “Our homes are gone,” cries someone in the square.
Berend steps back into the alley’s shadow. The guards haven’t spotted him yet. The fastest way to Lady Breckenridge’s apartments lies directly ahead, but he can take a roundabout way—that is, if her home hasn’t been crushed by huge, alien fingers or turned into dust and fog.
He should stay. He should tell all these people what’s coming, that even the council house isn’t safe, that they should all run and buy themselves a little more time, but he doesn’t. He tells himself that they won’t hear him and there’s no use; he’s better off getting to the apartment as quickly as possible.
He may be lying just to spare his conscience. He takes off at a wobbly run just the same.
The second opportunity to preorder this book will be this Sunday, October 22, at What the Hex Autumn Witches’ Market! It will be at Dresden Castle on Underwood, Cudahy, WI from noon until 6. If you’ve been keeping up with this version, the published version will be better in every way: polished, plot holes filled, setting and themes properly structured, characters more themselves, and longer chapters. The ending may also change. My hope is for you to enjoy both versions as well as the journey!
Space Whales Press 
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