Bone, Fog, Ash & Star by Catherine Egan Page B

dragons were still circling above, shrieking. The canyon splintered off into narrow fissures that wound between sheer cliffs. It was into one of these that they went. It was barely wide enough for Foss to stretch his arms out. The sky was a thin strip of blue far overhead. The path was barely a path at all and so Foss had to scramble over piles of stone where parts of the cliff had caved in. It made Eliza terribly nervous to see these piles and she kept looking up lest another one should be coming down on their heads.
Within an hour or two of scrambling through a maze of deep ravines, they were both entirely visible again. She could not see the sun but she guessed they were making their way roughly north.
“Where are we going, Foss?”
“We will go to Tian Xia,” he said. “We must get you to safety. There is no one who can protect you from the Mancers in Di Shang.”
“What about the Thanatosi?”
“Your friend is safer than you right now.”
The light faded from the sky. Eventually Eliza could make out a few stars glittering in the dark crack between the cliffs above. She was exhausted and terribly thirsty and they had no water or food. Even hanging on to Foss required more strength than she had left.
“I need to rest,” she told Foss.
“Ah! Of course.”
He stopped and put her down gently on the stony ground. Eliza took the Gehemmis out of her backpack and passed it to him. It was smooth to touch, not heavy, about the length of her hand but narrower.
“This is it.”
He held it in his hands and murmured a few spells over it. It took shape, and they examined it curiously by the light of his eyes. It was a white shard with a few black symbols etched into it.
“Is it stone?” Eliza asked. “It’s too light, nay?”
“Bone,” said Foss.
“What do the symbols say?”
“I cannot decipher them without the Book of Symbols,” said Foss. His voice was hushed with wonder. “But it is very old indeed, Eliza. Far older than anything that I have ever held in my hands. It possesses great power, too. I believe this is indeed the Gehemmis given by the Ancients to the Horogarth at the very Beginning and stolen by Lahja in the Middle Days. I did not believe the story until now, but holding it in my hands I cannot deny what I know to be true. Kyreth will not let go of this lightly.”
Eliza leaned against the wall of the cliff. Her mind was brimming with too many fears to think of. The Thanatosi, who could not be called off, were waiting for Charlie to leave the Realm of the Faeries. The Emmisariae were out looking for her and for Foss. She could hear the cries of the dragons not far off. And without food or water or money or any form of transportation they had to somehow cross the Republic, for the only ways into Tian Xia that she knew of, besides the Crossing in the Citadel grounds, were in the east.
“What are we going to do, Foss?”
But she was asleep before he could answer.

FOG

Chapter
~8~
Nell and Charlie waited in a grove of apricot trees. The ripe, golden fruit hung from the branches like jewels. In the distance, a castle perched atop a craggy mountain. It was a smallish castle, as castles go, its roof forming a bright peak and swooping out in either direction like wings, as if the whole thing might, at any moment, take off from the mountaintop. It shone blue-green in the soft light.
“I cannay say it’s good to be back here,” muttered Charlie, rubbing his neck. He was sore from the long flight on the myrkestra.
“Just be glad he’s taking us in at all,” said Nell.
“I am glad,” said Charlie, sounding anything but.
“ Am gla! Am gla!” twittered a songbird from one of the trees, cocking its head and looking curiously at the pair.
“Quiet, you,” said Charlie to the bird.
“Kwaityu! Kwaityu!” chirped the bird, hopping closer, most intrigued now.
Nell laughed, then pointed into the trees.
“Look, here’s Jalo come back.”
“That was quick,” said Charlie suspiciously.
Jalo strode