The True Game by Sheri S. Tepper part two

The voice, when it comes, is full of sighs and pauses, long unconscious and unwitting moments. “Slow. Always slow. Well, why not? Bones should lie down, Tolp. Lie down. Slow and slow in the summer sun. Summer sun. I remember summer sun.”

“I remember summer sun,” cries a skeleton from the wall, waving the torch wildly before its empty eyes. “Summer sun. Winter cold. I remember pastures. I remember trees.”

“Shush,” says the warder, mildly. “Shush, now. Remembering is no good. It only makes you careless with the torches, Bones. Don’t remember. Just pass the fire along there, pass it along to the end so the high-and-mighties can see their way.”

“Who?” asks an incurious voice from the dark. “Who is it using the way to Hell’s Maw, Toip? They came yesterday, I thought. The legless one and the skull-faced one and the cold one…”

“Came and went and will come again,” replies Tolp, lighting yet another torch. “Legless one is a poor Trader, Laggy Nap. They put boots on him, he said, and sent him into the world. When the mountains blew up, so did the boots, and now he has no legs…”

“No legs, no pegs; no arms, no harms…” the bones sing from the dark wall. “No ribs, no jibs…”

“Shush. Cold King came yesterday, too. Old Prionde. Not liking what he sees here much. Well, he’s not far from bonedom hisself.”

“And the Demon, Demon Master, Huld the Horrible?” The Bonedancer laughs, a sound full of choking as the miasma pulses in and out of his cankered lungs.

“Went out, will come in again. Always. Since he was a child. For a while he was in Bannerwell with his pet prince, pretty Mandor, but Mandor’s dead so Huld is here now, almost always. Hell’s Maw has been Huld’s place for a long, long time…”

The Bonedancer sighs, coughs, sits up to spit blood onto the slimed floor. “Huld’s been here forty years. Old Ghoul Blourbast brought him here first when Huld was a child, before he was even named Demon. You remember him then, Tolp. Used to help you in the dungeons.” The Bonedancer laughs again, a hacking laugh with no joy in it. “Liked the hot irons, he did, specially on women.”

“Oh, aye. I remember now. Forgot that was Demon Huld as a child. Mixed him up with Mandor. Well, Huld’s only been here really since Blourbast died in the year of the plague in Pfarb Durim. He sent all the way to Morninghill for Healers, I remember. Caught some, too. I got them before he was dead.”

“Healer, healer, heal these bones,” sing the skulls from the wall. “Call the Healer, broken bones, token lones, spoken moans… A clattering echo speeds down the line of them into the mysterious, endless dark.

“Hush,” says Tolp. “Hush now.”

“Wish I had one now,” says the Bonedancer. “Any Healer at all.”

“There’s some up there with flesh power,” says Tolp. “One came through here not more’n two days ago.”

“Flesh power! That’s how I’ve come to this pass, letting those with flesh power lay hands on me. They may be able to Heal when they’re young, Tolp, but when they’ve laid bloody hands on a few, they forget how to Heal. All they can do is make it worse. No. I mean a real Healer.”

“Been long,” answers Tolp, “since a real Healer set foot in Hell’s Maw. Those I Divulged for Blourbast was the last.”

“Those you killed, Tolp. Say what’s true. You tortured them and you killed them because Blourbast wanted vengeance on them. They wouldn’t Heal him. You killed them, and no Healer will lay hands on you ever because of it. Nor on me. Nor on any who’s come here of their own will.”

“We could go away,” says Tolp. “Travel down to Morninghill ourselfs. They wouldn’t know us there.”

“They’d know.” The Bonedancer lies down with a gasp, takes up the mouthpiece once more to suck numbing smoke and release it into the dank air. “Don’t know how they’d know, but they’d know. Soon as they touched you, they’d know. Left a print in your bones, somewhere. Any time you hurt a Healer, they leave a sign on you. Even if they can’t get at you right then, they lay sign on you. I always heard that.”