The Legend of the Pale Haired Bone Piper

Their laughter was shrill. It cut through the dark air like shards of glass. Their forms dipped and twirled, smoke twisting their shadows into macabre creatures. 

Loetia danced with them. Her green overcoat spilling around her as she spun in the haze. Until she became one with it. Sensed as it floated over her skin, leaving behind trails of blue, green, and orange. Suffocated on it as she sucked in air to play another note on her flute. 

Pure euphoria. 

The longer she played, the more her lungs burned, the more forms joined around her. Some collided together, others whirled on their own. Windchimes sang from the trees and embers swooped up into her coat as she pivoted towards the blazing fire in the middle of the square. 

There was no last chorus as she finished the song. Simply a final, hollow note that echoed off the trees. Loetia dared not move a muscle after she brought the aged flute from her lips. A dark red smear marred the carved bone. 

Around her the fire blazed, its heat licking up her arms and hungrily biting at her clothes. Yet it did not light. Lacrane had ensured as such. 

The square was silent, all bodies halted in whatever position they had been in when she finished the note. Sweat poured in rivets down her face and heaving chest. Her large, round spectacles slipped a fraction. 

Loetia lowered her arms and stepped out from the flames. Around her, the village folk erupted into cheers. Those who had joined the dance moved once more. Some collapsed to the ground, others slung arms around each other howling with laughter. The children scurried to find their parents. 

Loetia pushed up her golden spectacles and ran a soot covered hand down her face. Strands of her pale hair had slipped loose from her tight braids and clung to her temples. The Bone Piper was what they called her. What they had called every woman in her family for as long as they had lived in the small mountain village. They all served one role in the Wind Festival. To play the tune that carried the secrets of the village to Nymtris, the guardian of the Tinear forest. 

The cobbled path gave way to soft native grass and Loetia lowered herself onto a stone bench. The harsh craftsmanship had long worn smooth and small engravings speckled the surface. Above her a great oak tree blocked the light of the stars, the ancient branches curled and knotted. 

Long strips of colored ribbon cascaded down from those branches, having been tied there that afternoon by the townsfolk. She ran the closest one through her fingers, watching as the delicate scribblings on the faded fabric flowed like water in a stream. 

Each Autumn, the village would write their deepest secret or confession on the ribbons and tie them to the branches. Then the wind would take them to Nymtris once Loetia’s flute had awakened him. 

Someone sat down beside her. 

Only three people were allowed under the festival tree. It was why she had fled there. Ouranous, the leader of Tinear who began the Wind Festival by selecting one ribbon to read aloud. Herself, being the Bone Piper. And Milikan, the village Listener. 

Letting the ribbon drift away, Loetia lifted her chin and glanced to see Milikan bent over beside her. As the Listener, he was trained to hear messages from their guardian. Seasons like this strained him, even though he tried to hide it under crisp, bright indigo robes. If a Listener spent too long in the forest, surrounded by the language of the spirits, they were known to go mad. Their last Listener had succumbed to such. 

“You will leave soon.” he whispered, fiddling with a tie on his robe. The dark circles under his young eyes deepened. Soon he too would yield to the madness.

Loetia crossed her hands and watched as the flames illuminated the thatched roofs and stone walls of the houses. She etched cool indifference into her voice “Yes.”

“Will you return?” 

He did not ask out of concern. He asked to know if his future was as dark as his predecessor’s. If she too would turn to Tinear before her time. 

Loetia pressed her lips into a thin line. “I am undecided.” 

Through the dancing ribbons, children had encircled the flames skipping to a fiddler’s tune. Some had adorned haunting masks of pale creatures. 

Millikan loosed a breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him run a hand through his long umber hair. The ceremonial clasps in his braids sang like bells as they clashed together. 

She dug her nails into her wrists. 

Straight lines of tiny diamond markings glowed periwinkle down his bare arms. The markings coalesced along his cheek bones and collarbone, pulsing with each stilted breath he took. 

 Their people had once believed themselves to be descendents of fallen constellations and certain markings, their nyti, heralded to different origins. 

It was how Loetia was the Bone Piper. Her amber nyti were shaped like tiny ferns that circled around her eyes and down her cheeks. They flowed like vines along her skeleton. A descendant of the Fawn and Hunter. A harbinger of balance. 

“You will risk the Meludanti?”. 

“I will.”

At this he turned fully to face her, his knee propped on the bench. “Cronan would not have wanted–”

Loetia bared her teeth at the name of the last Listener. “Do not.”

Millikan reared back, his tender age of seventeen showing in his wide eyes,. It revolted her. How dare Ouranous have chosen a Listener so innocent to the world. 

She relaxed her brows. “Meet me at the edge of Tinear like we practiced. I will be back.”

He opened his mouth as if to say more, but Loetia interrupted him. “Leave Milikan. I must prepare.”

“But Loetia–”

“Leave.” She clipped the word even as her heart sank. 

He clamped his mouth shut, studied her for a long moment, then stormed towards the square. 

Loetia glanced at the ribbon closest in front of her. It was the one she had read earlier. Hers from four years prior. Her confession had invariably been the same. She rose and walked away opposite of the square. 

The ribbons glided along her skin, the secrets etched onto their surface sinking their teeth into the marrow of their keeper.

Behind her, laughter pierced the night. 

* * *

One of the Bone Piper’s roles during the Wind Festival was to enter the Tinear Forest and bring her tune to the Bluesmoke Springs. Aptly named, the springs were pools of naturally luminous water that flowed from the top of the Ferrous Peaks, down the mountainside. 

Tonight, she would wade into the water playing her flute of bone. She would play until her lungs screamed for air then she would fall beneath the water. She would pick the starbells that bloomed only during the Wind Festival, braving their searing barbs and paralytic poison. 

She would crawl to the surface before her limbs failed her and lay upon the mossy rocks. When she could move once more, she would return to where the Listener awaited her. She would hand over the luminescent flowers that helped him hear the whispers of Nymtris. She would complete each step as she had ever since her mother failed to return from the springs. 

Except this time, she would not go home after handing the starbells to Milikan. This was her last festival. Loetia would never again play the flute, instead she would leave it at the spring’s edge for her niece to find. Lacrane would be a strong piper. One day she would lose herself to Tinear, but she would last far longer than Loetia had. Longer than her mother, who succumbed not to Tinear but to the starbells, where Loetia had pulled the flute from her sunken corpse. 

Milikan was silent as she handed him the starbells. Unshed tears glistened along his lower lashes. Loetia pushed her spectacles up higher, her long braid dripped icy rivets down her spine, and large welts marred her arms. In the distance, the revel continued as the folk celebrated their darkness being carried off. 

She turned from the young Listener towards the ancient oaks and towering pines who swallowed her into their shadows. The village never did see their pale haired Bone Piper again, but the Wind Festival would gain a new song. The tale of the amber eyed woman who would watch from Tinear’s edge each year.

* * *

Loetia sought in Tinear one thing. Not madness as Milikan had thought, nor desolation as the folk whispered. Not even death, as their last Listener. No, she sought a village. One only spoken of in harsh whispers.

Hysten. The village of the Meludanti. 

When the folk had once believed themselves to be stars, they had also believed in the judgement of twins. The birth of two babies was unbalanced. The soul had wrongly been split in the womb. One child was judged to be the intended, the other, deemed unfit, would be left at the edge of the forest for the Silken. Moving in preternatural harmony, the creatures would carry the infant to Hysten. 

The unfit child would become Meludanti. The great legion of Nymtris who protected the folk and their harvests from evil spirits. 

Loetia had never seen a Meludanti nor a Silken. She had not even known of Hysten’s existence until she had entered Cronan’s house four years prior and seen it written along every surface. Ouranous had dismissed her when she had asked him about the word. She had uncovered the legend a few months ago when Milikan had discovered the word in a book left to him. 

Now she walked with trust alone in Nymtris. While she could not commune with the guardian as a Listener, she had bargained with Nymtris when beneath the Bluesmoke Springs. As her lungs had failed and she sank besides her mother’s skeleton, she had seen the guardian of Tinear. Nymtris’s great antlers had pierced the water’s surface and she had reached. Loetia touched the guardian.

She had not lied when Milikan had asked about her return. Under the tree she had not known if Nymtris would respond to her pleas. Now, in the darkness Loetia watched as flashes of radiating, amber light erupted behind trees directing her path.

 First it was the eyes of a small rabbit. Then as she turned eastward, it was a fox with glowing paws sprinting to the west. At a river bed, a school of shining minnows darted across the gentle rapids. She followed.

The thick canopy blocked the moon from view, leaving Loetia to measure time by the pain radiating from her welts. As agony rippled through her limbs, her legs started to tremble. She had begun to believe she had imagined the encounters when behind a rocky ledge she caught sight of luminous antlers. A stag stepped out and huffed steam from its nostrils. 

Loetia laughed.

It was not joyful. The sound clawed its way out of her throat like a trapped, wounded animal. This forest had only ever taken from her. It had shattered her vocal cords, cleaved away her emotions, and had isolated her in the lone cottage on the village outskirts when she was not needed. 

The stag only continued to stare at her, unfazed by her bout of hysteria. She might have thought it not alive at all except for the subtle rise and fall of its flanks. 

The lone, haunting keen of a feminine wail fractured the air. The stag whipped its head towards the sound, ears pricked forward. The wail began again, this intensified by more voices. They were soft and devastating at the same time. Loetia followed where the stag was surveying to see wisps of white twirling amongst the trees. 

Gooseflesh erupted across her skin. Only one creature could make a sound like that. Without warning the stag sprang into the darkness, his tail held high. 

Loetia sprinted after him.

Dense foliage clung to her boots and branches whipped against her injured body. Thorns clawed at her face and snagged her hair. Previously Tinear had seemed gracious to let her pass through under the guidance of Nymtris. Now it was doing everything in its ability to keep her trapped. 

Around her the Silken danced. As they moved, their ivory, silk-like skin tore away from their decaying skeletons as though billowing skirts. Their unearthly wails and keens echoed off the trees and inundated her thoughts. Her veins chilled as the agony in their voices turned her blood to sludge. 

A root caught her boot. 

Loetia crashed to the moistened forest floor and her spectacles tumbled from her reach. Through blurred vision she watched as the forest swallowed the stag. Around her, the Silken’s writhing bodies drew closer. Loetia recoiled as their gossamer skin ghosted along her legs.

The sharp jab of a rock against her spine momentarily cut through the nausea brought on by the sticky, web-like residue left behind. The Silken screeched in a mockery of laughter as their skin glided over her arms and back.

They were cocooning her. 

Loetia dug her fingers into the brush and wrenched forward. The muscles in her arms screamed in protest. Blood oozed in hot rivets from underneath her shredded ceremonial gloves, turning the cream fabric crimson. She tasted iron and warmth began to drip from her ears. 

Tinear would not claim her. 

The Silken played with their toy. They drew in to shriek in her face before tittering away to clasp onto each other and twirl around the trees. Their skin peeled higher to expose rotting viscera. 

Loetia crawled. Her nails splintered then broke. She dragged herself from the forest’s suffocating grip until her raw, seeping fingertips latched onto something solid.

Stone cut into the shape of a rounded oval. Before her rose the remains of a dilapidated village. Roofs rotted inside the structures, walls crumbled, and yet not a single leaf touched the stone.

Loetia whirled and launched the brick at the closest Silken. It struck the creature in the temple, translucent skin fracturing as the Silken’s head was thrown to the side. 

All wailing ceased. 

Every Silken peered at her through clouded eyes, full red lips parted to reveal rows of razor teeth. The one she had struck touched the viscous ichor flowing from its temple before pausing to study the fluid. 

Loetia ripped the webbing from her legs and scrambled to her feet. She tore down the collapsing alley, her hands leaving crimson streaks against the stone. The rusted sign of the apothecary swung on a phantom breeze, rotted wooden barrels were stacked by the tavern, and carts with leather harnesses still hitched sat in the carthouse. Each in the same location as her own village.

Behind her, the Silken began screaming. 

As she rounded a final corner, Loetia found herself in the square. There the stag waited. It turned its head gracefully towards her, eyes now blazing amber. She drew closer towards the faded sign in the middle.

Hysten.

She reached, fingers ghosting along velvet antlers and the stag tilted its muzzle down. Then it jerked, ears revolving to hear something in the distance. Loetia watched as it vanished into the forest, her muscles taut. 

The Silken had followed her. They had come and she had nothing left to give. Tinear would claim her. A hollow, triple knock rang through the village and for the first time in four years, Loetia cried. 

Tears burned searing tracks down her lacerated cheeks as she forced herself towards the noise. Her knees buckled and she lurched forward, but the Bone Piper did not fall again. 

A building rose in front of her. The roof had rotted away and the windows held none of the stained glass panels they used to, but a singular door remained. The three knocks sounded again. Loetia stopped in front of it resting her forehead against the rough wood. How many nights had she dreamed of this? How many days had she sat hutched over ancient texts not daring to hope?

Even now, she barely allowed her heart to thrum. This all could be a trick of the mind or an illusion of the forest. Perhaps the Silken had trapped her and this was a dying dream.

So be it then.

Loetia wrapped her bloodied knuckles twice against the door. It opened with a soft click and swung open on silent hinges. Warm air rushed out to greet her. She blinked slowly and then crossed the threshold.

The inside of the Listener’s house was exactly as she had remembered it. Tomes lined the upstairs landing, a tall roller ladder leaned against whatever section he had been researching that day. The smell of musty paper and ink washed over her and tears bubbled along her lower lashes.

Under the staircase was a large brick fireplace. Its blaze cast flickering shadows across the room. In front of the fireplace sat two armchairs: a wide, floral one that she had worn a curvature into and the other a tall wingback with cracking leather. There, a figure sat. His curly auburn hair barely visible over the back. 

He rose upon hearing her enter, rectangular spectacles perched along the large bridge of his nose and thick stubble trimmed his jawline. “My Lettie.”

“Cronan?” Loetia collapsed to her knees, tears falling. 

He set down the book in his hand and rushed to kneel in front of her. “My Lettie, why do you cry?” 

She buried herself into his chest, fingers clenched into his sweater as if she alone could hold him there. “You left me. You left me with only the terrible notion that you had once existed.”

He stroked her hair, chin resting on the top of her head. “I am so sorry, Lettie. Nymtris called.” His voice rumbled through her, the vibration achingly familiar and yet foreign. “But now you have answered as well.”