Sound of Stone

 

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The Hook

A girl with the ability to hear stories in stones (and bones) tries to figure out which one of her potential father's murdered her sister to prevent her getting sold into slavery.

Inspired by China Mieville, Ursula LeGuin, N.K. Jemisin

#fantasy #highfantasy #mystery #secondaryworld

Please send any feedback to erik.vanmechelen@gmail.com 

Best -Erik

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Chapter 1: The Chase

She rarely risked coming this close to the Road. Perched high upon a massive rock, Shay could feel, almost hear, faint whispers vibrating up from the earth beneath her. Looking down on the glowing Road, she watched the migration, of which the stones she'd listened to fortold.

 

Clutching an edge of stone to lean around an outcropping, Shay saw a way down to an outlook, close enough to see more without being seen herself. She scrambled down the face in her tiptoe way, avoiding snags on her fennec furs as she descended.

 

Reaching the outlook, she adjusted her bone mask and leaned out between two stones.

 

She could smell the migrants. The humans’ sweat. The reptilian saliva. The heavy breath of the normally-dormant wilders, a musical exertion if smell could be described as such. Much like stones revealed stories through vibration, living things gave themselves away by the smells spilling from their skin. The odors mixed with the subtle staleness of the Shadows’ quiet air.

 

Shay's heart fluttered. Ever since making base with the wilder outcasts, Shay had longed to see a traditional wilder troupe. Seven in all, they lumbered on great trunks of legs to the tonal beat of their marching song. Their tangles of dark hair weaved their massive bodies from tusk to rear claw as the timbre of their song threaded through unseen turns in the air.

 

The stone underfoot seemed entranced, stirring with excitement, prickling Shay's toes. The impulse to rush out to the wilders was uncanny. To speak with them, to tell them of their kind she lived with. What ice pillar had they climbed down from? Where exactly were they headed? She sighed, knowing she couldn’t reveal herself. She fingered a paintbrush in her furs she always carried. At least this would make a ruby of a painting.

 

Trailing the looming wilders, a family of jags shuffled smoothly along the glowing slabs, their long tails swishing against the mysterious granite. To Shay, they were a much larger and deadlier version of the annoying slate lizards. Shay put her finger through a hole in her fennec furs just above her waist, a reminder of an attack she'd parried from the sharp sets of teeth under those pointed faces. Lines of color traced their scales, and bits of light glowed and flashed from a series of horns on their backsides, emissions of light, communication. By the yellow-orange coloring of their squamous bodies, Shay identified their tribe. The Yula. From stories in stones, she knew they played second to the redder, dominating Dytans, but still the Yula migrated north. Did they have a choice?

 

The caravan's next group were humans riding a series of blue green jags. The ragged-looking humans weren’t wearing blade boots, so these people were likely a smattering of human and lesser jag tribes allying for the dangerous crossing of the Shadows. The pull to speak to them was even greater than with the wilders. She hadn't spoken to a human since she left Mama and Sewed Lips.

 

Shay watched the Road wind away like a glowfly, twisting among yet taller spires of rock. She watched the wilders and the jags and the humans go. Up and up. Higher and higher till their caravan looked like a line of tiny theatrical stone beetles. They went toward High Point and the merchants no doubt waiting there. High Point was the last safe place to trade before crossing the dark side of the Shadows toward the lava lake they’d need to cross to reach the Desolates.

 

Now the Road near Shay was empty. She started to turn but she _felt_ something. A pull like a whisper. Like the opening moments of relationships with thousands of stones who vied for her attention to share their stories. She glanced back. There was something on the other side of the Road.

 

To the untrained eye it could have been a boulder, but Shay knew better. It was a bag made of ceph skin, material commonly stripped from the water and lava creatures for cargo purposes. Maybe something _inside_ the sack was pulling her toward it.

 

She couldn't risk going out there.

 

But the pull was visceral. Even stronger than the wilders' music or the desire to speak with the humans. It was as if ten story-filled stones in a deep relationship were finally and all at once ready to share their darkest secrets. The pull was as strong as the push to leave Mama.

 

Shay fit her avian skull over her black hair. If she _was_ seen, her mask still protected her true identity. Her hand touched her dagger, secure in the furs on her hip. Her bow was tight to her shoulder. Its smooth obsidian was cool against her slender fingers. Cool and calm and confident.

 

A whispered phrase later she was sheltered behind a boulder on the Road's edge. How'd she get here? Even beneath her furs and the avian skull, she felt exposed. _In a moment you can slip into the icy waters._ Mama's words from fishing lessons in the Reach.

 

Surviving three quakes in the Shadows hadn't been easy. She'd scavenged, hunted, listened.

 

Too loud for her liking, Shay clammered across the bright as bright Road, pulling the noisy sack. Reaching her previous lookout, she retraced the landscape with her eyes. No followers.

 

She unstrung the bag. Opened it. Were these...?

 

She recoiled. Human bones.

 

A child's human bones.

 

Humans died often as anything, but their bones were never kept like this. Even Sewed Lips, who dealt in the bone trade with the skeleton pirates in the Reach, claimed never to have seen a child’s set. Shay noticed her breathing quicken. Who did this?

 

Shay reached for a bone that might have been the sternum, but it was hard to tell with the bones as small as they were. When her hand touched, she felt intrusive vibrations. The same abrupt greeting stones gave before presenting their stories through images and feelings. This bone’s murmurs were sharper. An urgent desire to speak, to share, to express...something.

 

At the connection, the other bones in the bag stirred like the tremors that were recently--and unseasonably--shaking the Known Caverns, including the Shadows.

 

Did they _all_ have a story to tell?

 

Touching a second bone, perhaps a finger, Shay winced. It had scraped her fingertips and the edges of her heart, a retching and wriggling like a hatching slate lizard clawing for its first breath in the Known Caverns. Fighting for birth from the imprisonment of its incubating shell.

 

Shay felt a flick of determined air brush her face, interrupting the connection. When she looked up from the bag of bones, she started. Two jags. On the Road. Big ones.

 

Their forked tongues licked layers of air, a movement Shay had seen many times: they smelled something. Shay didn’t want to wait around to find out if they'd smelled a rodent or a larger mammal.

 

Shay tried to take the first bone, the sternum, and step away. But the bone resisted, pulling her hand back. Then she realized in the bags’ stirring restlessness that it was the other bones that wouldn't let it go. _Fine, be that way_. She started tying off the bag.

 

She heard the jags coming, claws groping the landscape. Shay looped the arak string, knotting the bag.

 

Swinging the bag of bones over her shoulder, Shay looked up the spire’s face. She adjusted the bag’s weight, but it was too heavy. She slumped, dropping the bag. She couldn't carry the weight and outclimb them. Hearing the jag’s approach, Shay bounded onto a hold.

 

After a flurry of arm and leg moves, Shay spared a glance down; the jags had reached the bag. She pushed on, returning to her previous high perch. Leaning to look, she saw no bag, no jags.

 

But a growl slipped through the air. Shay's hand shook. Was it nerves or the hasty climb? She held her breath, quieting herself to listen at her deepest. There was quiet.

 

Only the Road far away leading to High Point gave light, where those families in the caravan marched onward for a better life. Darkness encompassed her, a protective blanket.

 

_Maybe the growl was just my stomach?_

 

Shay felt the air change, the smallest shift in the Shadows' usual stillness. _Too hopeful_. She twisted her neck, pulling her peripheral vision into focus. Below her on the spire, there was a darkness against the dark stone.

 

She wanted to, but Shay didn’t reach for her blade or her bow. Then, on the other side of her, just behind a ridge of the spire, the air shivered. The nuance was but a ripple in the air, but it was unmistakable. The whisk of a jag’s tongue. So they'd both come after her.

 

Living for quakes in darkness taught her how to use all the senses. She'd become a proper huntress. But even huntresses could be hunted.  She remembered the hole in her furs from a jag's tooth and felt the familiarity of prey anxiety.

 

_Let’s see just how well you hunt_. Shay gripped the stone with her toes, shimmied around the backside of the spire. Moving aggressively, she reached the bottom. Above, she heard the no longer disguised _tack tack tack_ of the jag claws. Shay set her jaw and dashed across the sweeping dark stone landscape.

 

Shay leapt over a deep crevice and rolled to break her fall on the other side. She heard a growl and the rustling of claws and saw the air around her gleam the faintest orange, an emission from their horns.

 

She led them to the Garden. From a distance, the rock formations appeared to be a short gray wall, maybe twice her height. In reality, the rock fingers here were thick, huddled together.

 

Darting in and out of well-known paths through the stone-fingered maze, Shay saw earthlights embedded in the stone swell to life for her to navigate tight corners, then blink dead after she passed. The jags weren’t far behind, but she knew the way. She could lose them. An eclectic wilder tune played unannounced in her head. She would lose them soon.

 

Her clothing ripped on a jutting notch of stone. She cursed the Flame Mistress and dismissed the wilder tune. A sudden realization: this wasn’t a routine escape from a rogue jag fighting her over dinner. The ripped fur obstructed her left leg, but she pressed on.

 

Shay scrambled into a clearing. At its center, she climbed onto a pair of fingers that leaned into one another forming an arch. Her blade released the imprisoning fur. It slid off the arch.

 

The arch skittered and vibrated under her toes, creating minuscule edges to grant her better grip. This stone was on her side. Solid piece of limestone, better character. Maybe it was repaying the stories and information she’d shared with it in the past. If she ever got to share the story of how she’d survived so long in the Shadows, building a relationship with the stones couldn’t go without mention. Everyone else seemed to ignore them.

 

Feet set, Shay focused her senses on the path she’d taken. She saw the jags scampering through the maze.

 

Reaching over her shoulder, Shay took her obsidian bow and prepared an ice arrow. _Take one down and see to the other with my blade_. If it came to that.

 

The jags slowed, maybe catching her scent and position despite the dark. They skipped closer to the edge of the clearing staying in the cover provided by the fingers. Shikayne saw their horns glow red and orange. The lights lit the fingers, released the colors into the air above the Garden.

 

Balanced by a strong toe grip, Shay notched her ice arrow. It started to warm, then burn her fingers. _Come out or go home_. The burns got bad. Unmeltable ice didn’t choose sides. _Show yourself!_ The arrow sizzled in her fingers, torching her skin. Still no clear shot.

 

She breathed out. Not the time to waste an arrow.

 

Gritting her teeth against the pain of her burned fingertips, Shay went to stow the arrow, but it slipped from her hand, clattered down the front of the arch. _Mistress!_ The jags growled and left their cover. Shikayne took a moment to eye her dropped arrow, then shook her head. She slid off the stone arch, darted for the far end of the clearing. The jags' claws tapped like a stone beetle drumming a tension-filled climax.

 

As she navigated deeper into the maze, Shay wondered how she could get to safety. Most rogue jags wandering the Shadows gave up after realizing she wasn’t easy prey. But these two were Yula from outside. Who knows what their motive could be. Her mind flickered into a space inhabited by warnings from Mama: _You can’t let anyone find you._

 

Shay pushed her tiring legs onward, leading her pursuers to the Giant Staircase, the only place she stood a chance to lose them. If they were outsiders, they simply wouldn’t be able to continue. The maze hadn't worked and it was too far to the cliffs where she made base with the wilder outcasts.

 

_To the Giant's Staircase then._

 

Fennecs and slate lizards scampered out of her path as the fingers gave way to a slanting stone landscape. There may once have been fingers here, but perhaps they’d fallen and rolled into the chasms. Shay ran hard. On unobstructed terrain and fatiguing legs, she needed to make the most of her head start on the jags.

 

Shay skipped over several cracks before reaching the edge of the cliff, the top of the Giant’s Staircase, a series of rock formations separated by bottomless trenches. Shikayne slid into a notch connecting the cliff to one of the largest rock fingers in the Shadows.

 

A large stone finger, at least six or seven times her height, had fallen between the cliff and the spire and now hung delicately balanced.

 

She took a first step. A growl behind her meant there was time for caution. Black strands of hair loosed across her eyes. No time. _Trust my toes._

 

Shay steadied her breathing and started across. One of the jags leapt down to the bridge and began clawing his way across.

 

Reaching the end, Shay pivoted on the spire's ledge and brought out an arrow.

 

_Crack_. She didn’t need it. The jag had tilted the weight of the rock-finger-turned-bridge too much. The bridge grinded against the spire's stone, then popped under the strain. The near end of the bridge severed its connection to the spire. The jag hissed and leapt for the edge near Shay, but its claws scraped against the near-vertical spire. The creature fell away with the bridge into darkness.

 

Shay waited longer than she expected for the sound of the bridge to reach the bottom, only to wonder if the strange sound was the parting growl of the fallen jag or the cry of the collapsed bridge reaching up from the abyss.

 

The jag across the chasm growled and flared its top horns bright red, revealing its full length and girth and angled head. Its tail curved over its head, flicking flexibly. Shay wondered if the jag would attempt to jump. Jags could leap far, but this was a foolish distance. Wasn't it?

 

Shay stood across from it, bow in hand, and readied an arrow. The spire rose behind her. The dark spaces of the Shadows loomed below. Her fingers burned anew. The jag waited. _This is to prevent my story from getting out_.

 

Shay surprised herself. She ended things by replacing her arrow. The jag ebbed red, flowed orange. _Come on...jump if you can._ One breath. _To avenge your brother..._ Two. The jag was a statue. Three. The jag turned and disappeared over the crest.

 

Like an arrow piercing, Shay felt the dam of adrenaline break to fatigue's flood. Being hunted to the edge of her ability had stripped her energy. Her legs ached from the run. Her heart still ran. Back against the spire, feetpads on the ledge, toes dangling over, the young huntress tried to rest a moment.

 

She reached under her avian skull to wipe away the black strands tangled in sweat obstructing her vision. _That was too close._ She pursed her lips and fingered her paintbrush. Then again, it _would_ make one diamond of a painting.


Shay turned to edge her body sidelong around the spire. She knew there was a hollowed out section on the opposite side, a bit of cave. Above the unknown depths of the chasm, she tiptoed the edge and pulled herself in whisper-quiet and quick as a lick.

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Chapter 2: Shade of the Shadows

“That was impressive,” said a voice in the darkness.

 

Shay started, fumbling for her blade. “What? Show yourself!”

 

“I’ve never seen the rock do that for anyone.” The deep voice remained calm, but Shay remained tense. Her eyes weren’t adjusting to the cave. Should she rush him?

 

A crack sounded and light spilled around her. A small bald bearded man clothed in a faded jag skin was tucked into the cave’s corner. He gripped stone staff. "Made my decision easy, didn't have to intervene."

 

Shay kept her avian skull tipped forward so the beak would protect her identity. She stayed silent.

 

Perched atop the man's staff was the earthlight called to life. A fist-sized stone of light. “This one’s been acting up,” he said.

 

It took Shay a moment to realize the man poked fun at himself. He controlled the earthlight, so it could only be his touch--or skill--that was lacking.

 

Shay heard a girl speaking, and listened. “What do you mean you’ve never seen the rock do that?” The words had fallen out of her mouth. It had been so long since she'd spoken with another human. _But I can't let him know that._

 

"Why did the bridge, that rock finger, choose that precise moment to let go?”

 

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.” Shay rubbed the bottom of her foot against the cave's gritty stone.

 

The man's free hand traveled across the ridges in his hairless scalp while his eyes searched the cave before returning to Shay. “How would _you_ put it?”

 

“The jag broke the bridge's balance. Hunters aren't always rewarded for persistance.”

 

The man laughed. He disagreed, but not in an unfriendly way. It felt..._good_ to hear a human laugh. To know instantly by its brightness and timbre what the laugh meant. Decoding the wilder songs for three quakes had required patience.

 

Shay resisted opening up there and then. She kept her head down, looking through the hole in the skull. The man finished his long chuckle. “I’ll say. It wasn’t a smart move to chase the Shade of the Shadows.”

 

The Shade of the Shadows. That was…_her_.  She almost lifted her head, but caught herself. “You know who I am?”

 

“I’ve heard stories,” said the man, grinning. “But if some of the stories are true, I’m not even sure if _you_ know who you are.”

 

Shay didn’t respond.

 

"You're a rare rock."

 

The man stepped toward her slowly. Shay stepped back. She reached back, feeling for the edge of the cave.

 

“The stone liked you, I think...” He took another step.

 

“Can you feel the stones?” said Shay, trying to halt his intrusion with words. Her feet were on the edge of the cave which was the edge of the spire. She could tiptoe away, jump onto the next one, but then what? Could he do something with the earthlight? Could he follow her? Shay thought of Sewed Lips, the horrible man Mama stayed with.

 

The man in the jag skin paused his advance. “Yes, but I can’t say I feel them like you do--how are we to compare?”

 

Shay eyed him, his grip on the earthlight staff was calm. His breathing normal under his jag vest. Maybe he didn't mean ill toward her. Shay kept a hand on the cave's edge while she considered the man's question.

 

Shay knew a way. But the more she said the more she couldn't take back. Mama gave her too much information and then Shay had run away to find out what Mama had left out.

 

“We’d have to tell each other. And I can’t do that.”

 

The old man was quiet a beat. "You know," he said, "my father told me I couldn't make stones appear just by dreaming them."

 

The man looked down to his hand, as if inspecting it. He flipped his hand in a blink and a green stone sat as if pulled from darkness, “You can't tell me anything because your secrets would be out, wouldn't they?”

 

_How did he just...?_ Shay kept her head down, deciding what to say.

 

“Don’t worry,” said the man. He came out to the edge of the cave, the spire’s edge, but a few steps away from Shay along the opening to the hollow, giving her space. He lowered himself to sitting, dangling his feet over the edge. A flick of his eyes to the space underneath her suggested she sit.

 

Shay frowned under her mask and remained standing.

 

The man shrugged, pulled something from under his jag skin. A handful of myriad stones. One was obsidian, by its glossed blackness. But the others? He mixed the materialized green stone in with them, the cutest little thing, then placed them on a biv leaf before him, spreading them. But where was the green one? He opened his palms. “Let me try a different approach. These stones," he spread his hand again, "I found all of them here."

 

Shay could think of better places then the Giant’s Staircase to look for stones. Like the Garden. Then again, she hadn't seen a green stone like that before...

 

“Seems dangerous, doesn’t it?” Gulem frowned, turned his head to look down into the black chasm where the bridge fell. “These chasms are gashes in history.” He opened his palm above the stones. “I found these so far since I’ve been here.” He snapped his finger and the green stone reappeared in his other hand.

 

_How is he doing that?_ “And how long is that?”

 

The man brought out a two-compartment obsidian piece, held it deep under the overhang of his thick eyebrows. “A couple turns on this trip. But I've been here before.” Shay saw the sand within trickling between compartments, a sleeker sandshell than her own.

 

Shay wondered how he'd stayed hidden from her. “Are you a merchant?”

 

“Yes, but not from High Point, if that’s what you mean. I only come to the Shadows occasionally. Most recently, I stopped by the tunnelers under Mounds. You know, the ones looking for the Source.” The man's eyebrow lifted. His eye was the same color as the pretty green stone, even under the earthlight's glare.

 

_The Source_. “I’ve…heard of it.” The Mounds were just beyond High Point, not far off the Road, but on Low Side. Even Shay, who could navigate the Shadows, didn't range into Low Side if she could help it. The stories scared her.

 

“From the stones?”

 

Shay didn’t answer. She'd already said she wasn't going to talk about that.

 

“Well, then you’ll know the Source has had a part to play in this. Why the Shadows are so empty. Why Low Side,” he waved a hand beyond the Giant Staircase, “is so dark.”

 

Shay was intrigued. “I haven’t heard that one.” She carefully sat, legs hanging out like the man's.

 

“It’s complicated,” he said. “These chasms, this division, it’s a strata too, a place where the stone families might have merged once, a long time ago." He turned his eyes down. "The opportunity to seal was missed.”

 

Shay didn’t know what a strata was, nor did she know how to ask. She didn’t want to seem too interested…the stones never gave her much if she was too interested. Not to mention she'd already decided she wasn't giving anything more. _I'm not sharing anything more, not yet._

 

“Anyway,” continued the man, looking out on the expanse of towering spires that peaked up between the descending formations of rock, “the tunnelers find rare stones now and again. The smart ones keep an eye out. I’m the go-between with the caverns outside the Shadows. Since the men and women have signed up for at least half a quake's worth in the tunnelling crews, I create the market for them."

 

"So you're a merchant of rare stones?"

 

"I'm Gulem, merchant and finder of rare stones." He paused, then extened his hand across the space between them. Shay hesitated, then tucked her arms beneath her armpits, a connection which completed the ink art she'd created. Gulem's eyes narrowed at the image's completion, the visage of a deadly bird. Then he sighed, looking out on the Staircase. A few breaths later he returned his green eyes to Shay. "You don’t have any do you?”

 

Shay's mind went to her stash in the wilder outcast cave. She didn’t choose stones for their rarity, but rather for the stories they might tell. And the pretty ones. She liked those, too. She wondered what stories Gulem's stones might carry.

 

Gulem caught Shay eyeing his stones again. "These are just beginnings of routes to more. When I find one lodged in these great formations, or pinched into a spire, it's a clue. Just need to follow the clue, you understand?"

 

Shay kept her head down. She _was_ interested. But she also grew anxious to end the conversation. _We can't trust anyone._ Words from Mama.

 

"Can you help me?" asked Gulem. "You're fleet of foot. And I don't suspect you were going to give up if the jags made it across that bridge, hm?"

 

Shay fidgeted. Wanted to stand. To leap to the next spire. To get lost in one of her secret places on the Giant Staircase.

 

Gulem leaned a bit closer to Shay, drew his voice quiet. "I don't know who you are," said Gulem, "but I know _what_ you are."

 

"I can't help you," said Shay firmly.

 

"And why not?" said Gulem calmly, drawing back slightly. His green eyes grew darker.

 

When she spoke, Shay spoke softly. "I need people to think I'm a monster." She sounded nothing like one.

 

"Ah yes," chuckled Gulem, light laughter contrasting his voice's deepness. "The Shade of the Shadows--the body of a frail human girl, head of a fierce legendary avian."

 

"That's right," said Shay.

 

"So, if someone asks who I ran into today, you're asking me to lie on your behalf?"

 

"Or say nothing."

 

"Saying nothing is a choice. What's more, you'd be putting my word against a jag's."

 

"Your word is good--didn't you say you were a merchant?"

 

"And a merchant's reputation matters. That jag knows what it saw. _Who_ it saw."

 

"It _saw_ the Shade of the Shadows," hissed Shay.

 

Gulem's body recoiled. "Okay! Easy..." He sighed. "Look, I’m not in the business of rare people. Sure, I fancy a sip of gossip, but mainly I’m in the business of rare stones. It's a serious business."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"I'm _not_ gonna tell your secret. It's safe with me." Shay worried what he knew. What the world knew. She didn't know why Mama had hid her in the Reach. She wanted to ask what Gulem knew, but she couldn't. _You can't trust anyone._

 

"And these huge cuts in the rock," continued Gulem, "opened further by tremors and quakes, well, here's a good place to find rare stones hiding. So I ask you again, can you help me?"

 

Shay hesitated, lowering her avian helmet further.

 

"Look," said Gulem, "I won't be here much longer. My lady wants me back in the north, across the Magma Spill."

 

"Maybe," said Shay.

 

"Great," said Gulem, exhaling. "There's a great little patch of stone not too far below here--"

 

"Not now," said Shay abruptly. "Maybe later, need to eat first."

 

"Here, I have food." Gulem shrugged, starting his hands through his vest.

 

"No, that's okay," Shay said as she stood.

 

Shay expected to see sternness, but Gulem's face was soft. "If you change your mind, come back here in one turn of the sandshell."

 

Shay turned toward Gulem, the bald bearded man still sitting on the edge of the spire, feet dangling, troubled face lit by the earthlight perched on his staff. She nodded ever so slightly. He opened his mouth to speak, but Shay leapt across the darkness to the next spire.


"That was impressive," she heard Gulem mutter.

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Chapter 3: Sound of Stone

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Chapter 4: Invitation and Aesthetics

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Chapter 5: The Bones

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Chapter 6: Betrayal

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Chapter 7: Painting and a Tremor

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Chapter 8: The Boy

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Chapter 9: The Bonescape

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Chapter 10: A Simple Trade

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