“That’s it?” Viv loomed over the proceedings. “You’re sure?”
“Hang on,” replied Gallina, and Viv could swear she was up to her shoulder in the bag, which shouldn’t have been possible. “Definitely other stuff in here …” She grunted as though stretching out her fingers to barely reach something, bit her lip, and then withdrew her arm with a glass bottle clutched in her fist.
Fern examined the bone the gnome had first retrieved, squinting as she tilted it in the light of the lamp. “Is this what I think it is?” she said.
Gallina held up the corked bottle and shook it. “Somethin’ in it. Looks like sand? Who carries around bones and a bottle of sand?”
“Well, a necromancer’s involved … Maybe the guy used them for … necromancer things?” suggested Viv lamely.
The rattkin noticed the bottle. “I don’t think that’s sand.”
“I thought Varine was the necromancer.” Gallina handed Fern the bottle, then groped around in the satchel some more. “Did the dead guy just wander around carryin’ her bones for her? Pretty crap job. Maybe he did run off. Probably bored. Hey, here’s another one,” she said, pulling out the bottle’s twin.
Uncorking hers, Fern sniffed delicately, whiskers twitching. She carefully tilted a few grains into her paw and prodded them with the claw on her thumb. “I was right, it’s not sand. It’s bonedust.”
Viv sighed. “Well, this was a waste of time, wasn’t it? All that trouble for a sack of garbage.”
Fern carefully poured the grains back into the bottle, recorked it, and then peered around her shop with a thoughtful look on her face.
“What?” prompted Gallina, pushing her wet hair out of her eyes again. “Obviously, you got some kind of idea, huh?”
The rattkin ignored the question, lost in thought as she disappeared around the end of one of the shelves with the bottle still in hand.
Viv and Gallina peeked after her and found Fern on tiptoe, running her claw along the spines of a set of big leather-bound volumes shelved in a back corner.
“I’m sure it’s here somewhere …” muttered Fern. “Aha!” She pinched one and slid it from between its neighbors, catching it awkwardly with the arm still occupied with the bottle. “Shit! Heavy!”
As she carried it to the back counter, Viv caught Potroast gnawing on one of the bones, his beak clacking loudly against it. She rolled her eyes and left him to it. At least they were of use to someone.
“Now … where the fuck are you …” whispered Fern as she leafed through pages thin as onion skins. Viv had noticed she got even more foul-mouthed when speaking softly. Gallina and Viv looked at one another, shrugged, and waited quietly until at last Fern stabbed a passage with a claw and said, “Ha! I knew it.”
“So … it’s not worthless junk?”
Fern favored Viv with a triumphant smile. “I guess that depends on if it works. Osseoscription!”
“Never heard of it,” said Gallina.
“Not surprising, but—Fuck! Potroast, no!” shouted Fern, noticing his chew toy for the first time.
The gryphet hooted longingly around the bone jammed crosswise in his open beak and then very grudgingly set it down. He licked it once before backing away a step.
“Bring it up here,” Fern briskly ordered.
Viv moved to grab it, but Gallina made it there first. “Your leg probably got you in enough trouble today already, yeah?” Her expression curdled into one of disgust. “Aw, hells, it’s all slimy.”
Fern took it in paw and dried it with the hem of her cloak, then held it up again, rotating it in the light. “You see this? Look closely. They’re incredibly tiny.”
Viv leaned in, squinting. “Are those … words?” Tiny scratchings were engraved into the bone in long, swooping lines that curled around the length and flourished toward the knobby ends.
Gallina tried to tiptoe high enough to see but gave up and went to grab another bone from the satchel. “Huh. There is somethin’.”
“Osseoscription,” said Fern. “It’s sort of … an enchantment of animation, permanently inscribed into the bones. Incredibly challenging to create, or so it says here.”
“Doesn’t seem real animated,” observed Gallina, tapping what looked like an ulna against her palm.
Fern held up the bottle. “It doesn’t function without a catalyst. Bonedust. A powerfully invested powder that activates the scripts.”
“And then what?” asked Viv. “You sprinkle it on some bones and you get … a wight? So, what you’re saying is, we should keep the two things as far away from each other as possible?”
“Not a wight. At least that’s not what it sounds like. A … well, the book calls it a bone homunculus. It’s an … assistant of some sort?”
Gallina frowned. “What does it assist with? Stabbin’ things?”
Viv’s eyes widened. “Or maybe it’s the sort of assistant that breaks you out of your prison cell.”
“Huh, that’d explain a lot,” said Gallina.
“Well, I say we fucking try it!” cried Fern, her eyes ablaze with excitement.
Viv and Gallina shared another look. “Ain’t we supposed to be the reckless ones?” said the gnome.
“Are you telling me you’re going to just pretend you don’t want to fucking know?”
Viv frowned. “Well …”
“Isn’t this what you do?” demanded Fern. “And if it does turn out to be a wight? Can’t you just, you know”—she swung an imaginary blade with both paws—“use your sword to bash it apart?”
For a few moments, Viv felt a nagging need to be the voice of reason, but in the end, there was no way in all eight hells she could leave well enough alone.
“All right,” she said, trying to maintain a tone of patient deliberation. “But we’re going to prepare first.”
* * *
In the end, they cleared a space in the shop, shoving the chairs and side table into a corner, rolling up the carpet, and locking Potroast in the back room. He made his displeasure known with a series of forlorn hoots.
The satchel sat open in the center of the room. It seemed more prudent to keep the bones clear of the walls, in case it gave them an advantage if things went horribly wrong.
Viv and Gallina argued over which of them would apply the dust, but in the end, the choice was obvious, since Viv had actually fought the things before.
“So, how much should I sprinkle in there?” Viv asked in a quiet voice.
“Why are you whispering?” hissed Gallina.
Fern shrugged. “No idea. The book isn’t an instruction manual. Start small?”
“Start small,” echoed Viv.
She stood back as far as she could and tilted the bottle, tapping with her forefinger to sprinkle dust into the open satchel as though she were salting a bowl of soup.
Stepping away briskly, she held her breath and waited. All of them did.
For a long time, nothing happened.
Viv was just about to apply another dose when the satchel rustled, and they all jumped.
The leather sides flexed and contracted, as though the luggage was breathing. A delicate clatter arose from within.
Questing like pale caterpillars, the phalanges of a skeletal hand crept over the lip of the satchel, wriggling in the air until the bones of a wrist and forearm clicked into position behind them.
Viv’s hand tightened on her saber’s hilt.
Thunder rattled the windows, and wind howled hard under the eaves.
Viv and Gallina both readied their blades as the hand curved over the side to probe the floorboards. It patted around, then dug its fingertips in and pulled. The satchel tumbled onto its side, spilling an improbable number of bones onto the wood—far more than the bag should have contained.
Fern gasped and drew back, as Potroast began hoot-barking even louder.
With a gentle clatter, the spray of bones wriggled up until they formed legs, ribcage, and arms. Even as the metacarpals of the left hand slithered into place, the homunculus was reaching into the satchel to pluck out a skull, which it settled onto its shoulders. Two nubby horns rose from its forehead.