"And where came the screeling?"
"In the same room as the boxes, as the Stone."
She shook her head in puzzlement. "Perhaps it could be as you say, that it came to get the stone, but it makes no sense for a screeling to come for the Stone. I wonder how he found you." She limped on toward the shelves. "Something had to guide him."
Balancing on her toes, she peered to the back of a shelf, carefully pushing aside various objects, at last retrieving what she sought. Holding it in one hand, she limped back and placed it carefully on the table. It was a little bigger than a hen's egg, round, and age darkened with a deep patina that was a brownish black in the recesses. It was masterfully carved into the shape of a vicious beast, all balled up, but glaring with eyes that seemed to watch you no matter which way it was held. It looked to be bone, and very old.
Zedd picked it up, testing its weight. It was much heaver than he thought it should have been. "What's this?"
"A woman, a sorceress, gave this to me when I went to her, to learn. She be on her death bed. She asked if I knew of the skrin. I told her what I knew. She sighed with relief, and then said something that made my skin prickle. She said she had been waiting for me, as the prophecies had told her to do. She placed this in my hand, saying it be carved from the bone of a skrin."
Adie flicked her hand toward the walls, and then toward the bone pile. "I have a whole skrin here, among the bones. I did battle with one once, in the pass. His bones be here. His skull be on the shelf. It be the one that fell on the floor."
She put a thin finger on the carved bone sphere in Zedd's hand as she leaned toward him and lowered her raspy voice. "This, the old one said, must be guarded, by one who understands. She told me it be of ancient magic, made by wizards of old, possibly with their hand guided by the Creator Himself. Made because of prophecies.
"She said it may be the most important thing of magic I would ever touch. That it be invested with more power than she or I would ever understand. She said that it be of skrin bone, and of skrin force, that it be a talisman that be of importance if the veil ever be in danger.
"I asked how it was to be used, how the magic worked, and how it had come into her hands. She be very exhausted from the excitement of my coming to her, and said she must rest. She told me to come back to her in the morning and she would tell me everything she knew. When I returned, she had died." Adie gave him a meaningful look. "Her death be a little too timely to suit me."
Zedd had had the same thought. "But you have no idea what it is, or how it is to be used?"
"No."
Already, Zedd was using magic to lift it on a cushion of air, floating it in space, watching it slowly spin. The whole time the finely carved eyes of the beast peered back as the ball revolved before him. "Have you tried using any magic on it?"
"I be afraid to try."
Zedd held his bony hands to each side of the carving as it floated, probing gently with different kinds of force, different sorts of magic, letting them shift and slide over the round bone, testing, searching gingerly for a crack, a shield, a trigger.
It had the oddest feel to it. The magic reflected back as if it had touched nothing, as if the thing weren't there at all. Perhaps it could be a shield he had never seen before. He increased the force. It slipped against the carving like new shoe leather on ice.
Adie wrung her hands. "I do not think you should be..."
The flame of the lamp puffed out. A thin thread of greasy smoke curled from the abruptly dead wick. The room was left to the flickering shadows cast from the fire in the hearth. Zedd frowned at the dark lamp.
A sudden crash brought both their heads jerking around. The skull rolled across the floor toward where they sat. Halfway there, it wobbled and rocked to a stop, right side up. Empty eye sockets stared up at the two of them. Long fangs rested on the wood floor.
The carved bone ball thumped to the table, bouncing twice, as Zedd and Adie came to their feet.
"What foolish thing did you do, old man?"
Zedd stared at the skull. "I didn't do anything."
More bones tumbled from the shelves. Bones hanging on the wall clattered to the floor, some bouncing and flipping back into the air as they struck.
Zedd and Adie both turned to a racket behind them. The bone pile rattled apart, bones toppling and spilling over one another as the pile pulled itself apart. Some of the bones, as if alive, slid or rolled across the floor. Toward the skull. Sliding along the floor, a rib bone caught the leg of a chair and spun around, but continued on.
Zedd twisted to Adie, but she was hurrying to the shelf above the counter behind the table, the one covered with the blue and white striped cloth.
"Adie, What are you doing? What's going on?"
Bones collected in increasing number around the skull.
She yanked the cloth away, ripping it from its hooks. "Leave! Before it be too late!"
"What's going on!"
Jars and tins clanged together as she shoved them aside. She pushed her hand further along the shelf, fingers searching blindly. Canisters thudded to the floor. A jar tumbled out, shattering on the edge of the counter, throwing sparkling shards of glass over the table and chairs. A thick, dark mass from the jar oozed over the edge of the counter, carrying splinters of glass with it, making it look like nothing more than a melting porcupine.
"Do as I say, wizard! Leave! Now!"
Zedd rushed toward her, glass crunching under his feet. He jerked to a halt when he glanced over his shoulder toward the skull.
It was level with his eyes, bones collecting and assembling under it as it rose into the air. A few rib bones ranked themselves, vertebrae slipped into line, talons tipped claws, leg bones erected to the side of each flank. The jaw snapped into place as the skull rose toward the ceiling.
Zedd spun toward Adie, snatched her by the arm, yanking her toward him. She came away from the counter clutching a small tin in her other hand.
"Adie, what's hap
pening!"
Her head tilted up toward the skull brushing the ceiling. "What do you see?"
"What do I see! Bags, woman! I see a bunch of bones come to life!"
The shoulders of the skrin hunched as the thing grew with the addition of more bones. More yet were sliding across the floor toward it.
Adie gapped at him. "I don't see bones. I see flesh."
"Flesh! Bags! I thought you said you killed that thing."
"I said I battled it. I do not know that a skrin can be killed. I do not think they be alive. You be right about one thing, Wizard: since you be able to defeat a screeling, the Keeper sent worse."
"How did he know where we were? How does the skrin know where we are? All these bones are supposed to hide us!"
"I do not know. I cannot understand how..."
A skeletal arm swept toward them. Zedd lurched back, pulling her with him. Yet more bones assembled. Adie was frantically unscrewing the tin as he dragged her around the back of the table. The lid came off, dropping to the floor, spinning like a top. The skrin lunged, bringing an arm down. With a loud crack, the table shattered into splinters.
The round, carved ball bounced across the floor. Zedd tried to snatch it with a magic, but it was like trying to pinch a pumpkin seed with greased fingers. He tried to scoop it up with air compressed around it, but it slipped away and rolled into the corner.
The skrin skeleton leapt at them. They both went down in a heap as he yanked her back. Zedd hauled her to her feet as she thrust her hand into the little tin. The skrin was having trouble moving quickly; it had grown too large to fit beneath the ceiling.
The jaws of the beast opened wide, as if to roar. No sound came forth, but Zedd could feel a blast of air. It made their robes flap and fly as if in a wind.
Adie's hand came out of the tin, flinging sparkling white sand at the beast.
Sorcerer's sand. The fool woman had sorcerer's sand.
The skrin staggered back a step, shaking its head. It recovered in an instant, lurching forward again. Zedd unleashed a ball of fire. It passed among the bones to splatter liquid flame against the far wall. The tongues of flame sputtered out, leaving behind a sooty splotch. Zedd tried air, since fire didn't work. It had no effect.