I was sleeping soundly. The collection of bones under me arranged just so to be comfortable and yet sturdy. It took me a second to completely realize where I was sleeping. I opened an eye, and was face to beak with an enormous raven.
“Am I in trouble for sleeping here?” It tilted its head and cawed with a mirthful tilt. “Well, I’m already guilty, and I’m comfortable. If she lights my ass on fire, it wouldn’t be the first time, now would it.” It tilted its head back and cawed more laughter. “Lemme know if I need to get up, then. I’m relaxed, and at peace. I don’t get that often.” It nodded in obvious affirmation. It stood up fully, made a great show of looking around, then pecked me on the forehead.
Just as I start to fall in deeper sleep, I hear the raven shifting restlessly. The lack of accompanying sound bothered me. The raven was moving in the way I would expect, if I had to warn someone without saying anything. Just before I could sit up, a great number of bones rain down on me.
“Oh, this one isn’t dead after all!” That’s not Ravenwoman’s voice! I sit up at once, and turn to face the speaker. She appears about 18 years of age with the flush of adolescence, and the arrogance of the almost mature. She gloating at my discomfort. “She’s as silent as the dead, and as still as the dead. Perhaps she should be burned along with the dead.” The girl laughs at her joke. I know how this realm juggles appearances. Her appearance is youthful, her laughter is middle-aged malicious.
Behind her, is Ravenwoman. She wears my deathmask, but says nothing. The mask covers her face completely, except for her eyes. I try to read her, but she is stoic. Ignoring the girl, I address Ravenwoman. “Would you have me arrange these bones on this pyre?”
Ravenwoman shrugs and finally speaks. “I would if you will. I care not if you don’t.” A non-answer. Around us are multitudes of ravens. They are watching the three of us silently. But in their stares, I can tell, they are not happy with the situation. What part of this displeases them, I can not tell.
The girl laughs at me again. “She’ll be fodder for the fire by the week’s end. Unworthy of being here.” I can feel my anger rising. I have to turn to climb off the pyre, as I do so, I catch a raven’s eye. Patience. I blink and the connection is lost. I take the word to heart, and start picking up the bones that fell. Stacking them onto the pyre and keeping my back to the girl and Ravenwoman, I watch the ravens in front of me. They are unconcerned with me, and are watching them closely.
I hear the girl derisively snort at me, then start to move on. “Are all your attendants so lazy?” I can hear her poking at different piles.
“Who said she’s my attendant? Surely you know her better than I.” Ravenwoman’s voice was still flat, but I caught a hint of mockery.
“I only know her words, actually.” I froze in fear as the implication came to mind. “She wrote enough about this place for me to find it. From her writings, I came to the conclusion that she had a more active role with you. I suppose not.” FUCK! Did I really describe it that well? I’m in deep shit, for sure.
“She is her own person. Surely you read that of her as well.” The girl laughs a deep mocking laughter in answer to Ravenwoman’s words. In my grip, a femur collapses, the damp marrow compressed out between my fingers. Several more ravens move to perch directly in front of me. I don’t catch their eye, but I am reminded to be patient by their presence. I duck my head down and continue stacking the bones.
“She is a doorway, Ravenwoman. Nothing more. She is a book herself, full of knowledge but unable to use the very thing she possesses. She is a tome for someone more able than her to use.” The voice remained a teenage girl. The haughtiness was of a 35yo that had never known want. Whoever this person was in the Waking world, they were used to getting their own way and to hell with the price.
They have moved a little ways off from me, but the voices carried in the still air. I hear the girl stop and turn sharply. “After all, Ravenwoman, I learned enough from her writings to know your name. Which is why you haven’t stopped me from doing as I will, or from going as I will.” What the flying fuck is this shit! She can’t be serious!
The girl continued gloating. “I know you can hear me over there! I’ve been reading everything you have posted! Such a world you have opened up to me. It masters you, but I will be its master! And then, I will master you.”
I look up at the ravens before me. One looks down at me, and nods. I address the girl, but I never turn around to face her. Instead, I start changing the top of the pyre I’m working on. Instead of a flat topped appearance, I start to arrange the bones to make a hollow. I throw my words over my shoulder as I work. “What is this? A dime-store novel? You’re really announcing your nefarious deeds before hand? Oh dear. Whatever shall I do? I guess this is where I, the valiant heroine, informs you that your evil will never succeed and blah, blah, blah.”
I pause to admire the hollow. It looks like I’ve woven long bones into the sides like a sunken bone basket. “If you are an intruder, you are on borrowed time. You’ve been allowed to persist here because you are amusing Ravenwoman. Maybe I have written too much. Maybe folks more clever than I have filled in the missing pieces. But you have overlooked something important.”
I stop speaking, and start to arrange the leftover bones in decorative arrangements on the cold pyre. The ravens move to grant me access. It is when I look up to view the overall effect, that I notice, the innumerable multitudes of ravens around us. Everywhere there is a place to perch, a raven is perched there. They are all focused on the girl. I turn slowly, allowing my gaze to show what I am looking at. When I finish my turn and rest my eyes on the girl, I see she is staring harshly at me. She has not noticed Ravenwoman has moved several feet away. She does not hear Ravenwoman chuckling softly.
The silence becomes too much for the girl. “Well! Tell me so I can strike it down in front of you!” She holds up a talisman. “See this? This is my token of ownership! I can come here when I please, and do as I please, and neither you nor Ravenwoman can do anything about it!”
A raven jumps from the decorated pyre to my shoulder. It is huge and menacing. I am completely at ease. I tilt my head towards it, and smile.
“First rule of traveling, my dear. Never piss off the locals.”
I watch her face as she sees the raven for the first time. Her sneer freezes as she looks around and realize the thousands and thousands of silent ravens watching the proceedings. She clutches her talisman. “I have the Powers at my beck and call. I can command gods!” Her gaze falls on Ravenwoman. “You! Bitch! Rend the Weaver to pieces!” Ravenwoman just tilts her head, and caws softly.
She speaks the language of ravens, which I can understand only in this realm. “Do as you please with her. She doesn’t amuse me anymore.” Ravenwoman snorts at the girl afterward, turns, and idly walks away. She pokes at bone piles as she moves, as if there was nothing of interest behind her.
“Where do you think you are going! I command you to rip the Weaver apart!” The girl’s voice has a panicked sound to it now. She turns and faces me again. Now she has a second talisman in her hand. “I know you can command fire here. You can not touch me! I am protected from fire!”
I raise an eyebrow as I feel my eyes brighten. “Oh really. You have been reading my words. I suppose I better not take you on, then. Because, you know, I don’t have a multitude of sharp pointy objects to play with. Oh wait, I do.” I pick up a shattered long bone. The girl’s face pales even more.
I look up to the raven perched on my shoulder, and caw softly to it, myself. This is not my world. I follow your direction. It looks down at me and nips me gently on the side of my face. I understand the motion and place the bone back in place. I am to stand down.
The girl interprets my action as surrender. I hear her start to intone a practiced incantation, but I know whatever she is trying to do will have no effect. She finished with a final shout, and as I expected, nothing happens. “I’m still here? But…”
The raven sneezes. I start to laugh. “Oh, you were trying to leave? Oh, here, let me help you.” I raise my free hand, and the pyres near her erupt into flame. She shrieks and stumbles away from them, into a slightly more open space. “If you had read my writings completely, you would have noted what happened to the only intruder I have seen here, other than you. I do believe I mentioned the ravens had torn the intruder to pieces.” I turn to the raven on my shoulder and address it. “I made space for the skull and a few other bones.” The girl starts shrieking obscenities at me as the raven stares at me.
In a great clap of noise, much like the snapping of sails, all the ravens nearby, all several hundreds of them, leap into the air and descend upon the girl. I stand stoic, with the great raven still on my shoulder, as she screams in a curious mixture of fright and defiance. I hear her calling on spirits and angels, servitors and gods to come to her rescue. The sounds of her screams soon give way to the sound of ripping flesh. That sound soon faded, to be replaced by the sounds of the ravens, fighting over scraps.
The large raven quit my shoulder and descended onto the carnage. At once the other ravens moved away to give the ravenlord room. It cawed for me to come collect the skull. I came over to the remains. Most of the flesh was gone. Joints pulled apart. The skull had been flayed of muscle and fat, the jaw ripped off, but the eyes remained. The large raven held the skull still, and pried out the left eye and ate it. It then hopped off the skull and cawed at me to claim my prize.
As I picked up the still dripping skull, I felt a strange heaviness to it. I looked in the remaining eye, and noted it was still clear. “Ah. Of course. Your skull is intact, your soul is trapped here.” Even though the eye was devoid of any flesh that could express emotion, the waves of hate and fear coming from her was palpable.
Whistling, I took the skull to the hollow I prepared in the pyre. A few ravens had already collected her arm and leg bones and were fussing over arranging them in the hollow. I placed them in vertically in the “basket” and laid the bleeding skull inside. As I stepped back, the ravens swarmed over the pyre. They had collected her other bones and were covering her skull with her own remains. But I note, they kept her line of sight clear. Her right eye stared lidless at me, now with fear and pity.
“By the way, dearie, I’m so going to write about you when I wake up. Let you be a warning to the others. I think that’s why I was allowed to take part in these proceedings. Make no mistake, this is not my world. This is not a place for would be magi to come pick-a-part. This is Ravenwoman’s Boneyard. And she will not be this kind again. You leave, with your soul mostly intact. But I’d take great care what you let your gaze fall on.”
I shout, and the ravens clear from the pyre at once. I can’t help but smirk. I lean my head back and shriek into the ever-grey sky. At once, the Purging Fire emerges from me and takes to the pyre at once. “You thought I was going to send the Devouring Fire? Your bones are far too wet for that. Burn well.”
I start to Dance the Bones, and the ravens fly about and on me. Their flight mimics me as they add their power to my own.
I can almost hear the shrieking of the girl, trapped in her own skull. I laugh and caw with the ravens.
My awareness fades, until all I know is the Dancing of the Bones, and even that fades at last.
Make of that, what you may.