“Hetold you?”Isaac asked.
Theskull looked at him, nodding.The jaw clattered against the upper palate, as ifmimicking speech.Below, the bones were forming words at a more measured pace.
SOULCAPTURE
WESPOKE TWICE
“I knewthat,” Isaac replied.“The Diet used the soul capture to speak with you, toarrange this deal.It was right before I was born, and right before I left.”When he considered this, he felt a moment of dawning horror.“You couldn’t stopthis deal after it was made.They had to contact you first, and they didn’t.There was no way to take it back.”
Theskull looked at him, silent.
REGRET
“So,”Isaac said, piecing it together, “when you spoke to your brother the secondtime, he ...told you I was dead.He told you he wasgoingto kill me,that the Diet was reneging on the deal.In fact, he had spent all this timepreparing to kill you.”
On thepelvic wall, the entire mass of bones began to shudder, like a breath of windthrough a tree.The skull seemed to hiss in pain.For a moment, Isaac couldonly imagine how it must have felt for his father, waiting in the dark, waitingfor his son, waiting so long that he’d forgotten the appearance of his formerbody, only to be told by his own brother that his son was soon to die in thedesert, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Thebones on the floor began to squirm.
REGRET REGRET REGRET REGRETREGRET
“I’msorry,” Isaac said.
“Isaac,”Zaria warned.
“No, Z.I do feel sorry.”He gazed up at the skull.“That must have been ...shattering, to hear, after all that time.I can’t even imagine the anguish.”
Theskull gave a single, trembling nod.
“So,”Isaac said, collecting himself, “you were expecting me to be dead, which is whyyou attacked us initially.For that, at least, I believe you.I’m assuming, aswell, you only recognized me afterward, by listening to our conversations.”
Theskull nodded again, managing to raise its eyeless gaze.
“Thenwhat about the wyrm?What were you doing there?”
Belowthe skull, two of the protruding arms began to whack their forearms againsteach other, like swords clashing.
“Soren,”Isaac said.“The duel.You were trying to stop it.”
Theskull nodded, swaying on the stalk.
“Alright.That’s ...believable.For now, I can only think of one more question.”Heglanced behind him, through the ruined metal of the extraction chamber.“Whatdoes the Diet want?Is it the treasure?The technology?The souls?”
Theskull shook its head.
“Thenwhat?Berith—uncle—” He released an angry breath.“Your brothersaidthat whatever was in this tomb was more important than a single life.”
Theskull gave a deep nod.
“Whatis it?”
One ofthe arms shifted up the bone wall, sliding along the nest of connections untilit was perched at the summit.It pointed a bony finger towards the wall of thechamber.At first, Isaac thought it was gesturing through the wall, at thecomplex behind them, where the necromancers had studied and experimented withthe depths of magical craft.There were lessons there that should not berepeated.
It tookhim a moment to realize the truth.
“Thegiant skeleton?”he asked.“The colossus itself?”
Theskull nodded.One of the other arms pointed toward the center of the chamber,at the device Berith had been working on.Isaac remembered, suddenly, thatsouls had been leaking from the metal.After catching his attention again, athird arm pointed diagonally into the floor, down towards the obelisk, wherethe souls appeared to consolidate.
