One of Soren’s teeth clattered to the floor.
“He doesn’t want to kill me.”Isaac grimaced, poking at thecurled flesh on his chest.The burn was wicked and black.“At least, he’s toomuch of a coward to do it himself.He will hesitate.I know he will.”
Zaria was less than mollified.“And what happens if he spotsme skirting the sides?What’re you gonna do then?”
Isaac pulled out the dagger she had given him earlier.
Soren shook her head.
“I’ve always been prepared to die for my mission,” Isaacsaid.“I was ready to fight the sorceress alone.In that regard, nothing haschanged.”
Zaria flexed her hand, hissing through the pain.
“If either of you has a better plan,” he said, “I would verymuch like it hear it.”
Soren crouched down, picked up the bomb, and gestured.
“I will need your help, as well,” Isaac said.“We need toget as close as possible, before I enter his view.A bomb will be very usefulin masking our approach.”
Soren hesitated.After a moment, she pointed at a mound ofossein, which had been spilling into the room.The fibers slithered back intothe viewport window.
“That was you?”Isaac asked.“Controlling the bones?”
Soren nodded.She pointed at the two of them.She gesturedtowards Berith.A moment later, she pointed at herself, followed by a directionperpendicular to the one they would take.Wherever she pointed, the osseousfibers began to quiver.
“You can use the ossein to distract the colossus,” Isaacsaid.“That’s good.The bomb will be an even better diversion.”
Soren shook her head, spraying some of her brain.
“Something else?”
She nodded, pointing at the satchel.
“Is it ...tangential to the bomb?”
Another nod.
“Bomb,” he said, like reciting a thesaurus.“Powder.Explosive.Heat.Energy—”
Soren nodded at the last word.
“Energy.”He paused, feeling a sudden chill.“You don’t havemuch energy left.”
There was another nod.With a jerk, Soren pointed at the waythey had come, through a cleared open tunnel of metal and bone.
“The obelisk,” Isaac said, piecing things together.“Thethousands of souls were the source of your power.It’s how you could manipulate the bones.Without them, you ...don’thave much left.You won’t have anything to sustain yourself.”
The bunny looked at him, silent.
“How long do you have?”Isaac asked.
The bunny looked to the floor, shrugging.
Isaac felt a rush of emotions, hitting him at once.He wasscared, and tired, and pained, and grieving, and it was all happening tooquickly, all the revelations striking him one after the other, too rapidly forhis mind to fathom, and, now, he had to hear that his father was dying, and itwas nearly enough to send him into hysterics.He looked at his father, who wascontorting the bones of a recently-dead pirate.There was suddenly so much hewanted to say.
The only thing that saved him from crying was the feelingthat his father was looking at him kindly, through blood and meat and bone.
“I need your help, father,” he said.“Can you be ourdistraction?”
