Bone War (31 page)

The queen made an upward gesture with one finger. Ranadar stiffened and his chin came up. His nostrils flared, and further words died in his throat. Gwylph drew the Bone Sword and casually sliced Ranadar's tunic open from throat to navel. She left a thin trail of blood behind. Talfi's heart nearly burst in his chest with fear and outrage. The queen set the point of the Bone Sword at his throat.

“I know what you are feeling,” she said, a little too cheerfully. “You are angry and outraged and you are in love. A mother knows. When that troll's boy killed your father, I felt the same outrage. I wanted to kill every Stane in the world, and crush every Kin who had helped them. I wanted to listen to their screams beneath my toes. I railed against the Nine and the Three and Death herself, and I decided to do something about it. I understand your love and outrage, my son, because I feel the same.”

“And what do you feel now?” Ranadar said through tight teeth. “Do you love me now?”

The queen gave a sad shake of her head. “I understand but do not sympathize. I understand you the way a butcher understands a cow. You are a disappointment, my weak little
Ranashka.
You father no children, not even bastards. Your magic is limp. You hide in the forest and pout over the death of a human toy. Worst of all, you betrayed me. How could I hold my head high as queen when my son followed his scrotum to live among Kin?”

Talfi watched the words fall on Ranadar like lumps of granite. He went limp beneath their terrible weight. Even in his precarious position, Talfi felt his pain and wanted desperately to go to him and comfort him even as he raged at the queen for saying such things to her own son.

“So what now, Mother?” Ranadar whispered. He was still upright, head held high by her magic.

“The Bone Sword,” she said, and sighed beatifically.
“One clean cut, and all that foolish outrage and fear and love vanishes like a troll's courage. You cannot imagine the relief! I know it does not sound palatable to you now, but when it is over, you will thank me. We will cut your heart out and place it in the tree next to mine, my darling. Forever.”

Sick nausea oozed out of Talfi's stomach and into his chest. It was hard to breathe. The possessive look Gwylph was giving her own son made Talfi's skin crawl with snakes and worms. The awful pile of meat that had been Other Talfi lay on the ground, gathering flies, adding to Talfi's nausea. He cast about for something to do but came up empty. The group of Fae was still watching from its vantage point a few paces away, and Talfi was still in the middle of an army. Things couldn't get worse.

“There will be no world to rule if you continue with this madness, Mother,” Ranadar said in a shaky voice. “The Tree is tipping, and this time it will destroy the world. Please, Mother. If you remember anything about how you once felt for me, end it. Release Pendra, and I swear I will do anything you want.”

“Would you?” For a long moment, she fixed him with hard emerald eyes; then she lowered him to the ground with a gesture. “Very well, then. Repudiate your love for the human boy.”

Talfi's legs weakened. Ranadar's mouth fell open and his eyes automatically sought Talfi's. Talfi swallowed hard, unsure what the queen meant. Another Talfi went into the river with a splash.

“Repudiate,” Ranadar said slowly.

“Yes.” The queen leaned forward with soft glee. Her armor clanked. “Give him up, and I will release Pendra from that tree over there.”

“No tricks?” Ranadar said. He licked his lips and looked about like an animal that had just realized it was trapped in a cage. Talfi's heart was pounding again. Ranadar said, “No semantics? You will follow the spirit and not the word?”

“I will.” She drew the Bone Sword. “I swear on this blade.”

“I . . .” Ranadar looked at Talfi again. Talfi's head spun. He stumbled toward Ranadar. One of the Fae moved to stop him, but the queen held up a hand. Ranadar caught Talfi around the shoulders.

“My
Talashka
,” Ranadar said. His eyes were filling up.

“You have to do it,” Talfi said hoarsely. “It'll save the world. We don't matter against all that.”

“How can you be so cruel, Mother?” Ranadar said over Talfi's head. “Just free Pendra. Why torment me?”

“It is for your own good,” Gwylph said.

Ranadar sighed heavily. Talfi felt Ranadar's arms around him, solid and strong. Inside, Talfi's heart was falling to pieces. He couldn't think of what it would be like.

“It will not hurt,” Gwylph said, noting his distress. “Truly. That is how the repudiation will work.”

“What do you mean?” Talfi demanded.

“Ranadar will not simply swear he no longer loves you,” the queen said with a small smile. “That would hardly be enough, would it? Your love must be removed entirely.”

“You can't remove love!” Talfi said.

“I can remove memory.” The queen sheathed the Bone Sword. “It will take but a moment, spiderweb soft, and you will forget your disgusting love. You will remember everything else—every sloppy kiss, every sticky fumbling, every poke and prod—but you will not remember the love. That is my price.”

Her words punched Talfi's heart with an obsidian fist. He couldn't breathe. He had no strength, no bones. Ranadar would truly remember Talfi as a toy, a thing to be discarded. It was worse than anything he had imagined.

“You can do that,” Ranadar said in a horrified voice. “Make me forget I love him?”

“Of course not,” the queen said, genuinely surprised. “You
are Fae and my son. I cannot tamper with your memory.” She pointed at Talfi. “I speak of him.”

“Me?” Talfi's mouth went dry. “How do you mean me?”

“I will remove that part of your memory. Are you not used to it, boy? Once you have forgotten your love, I will cut my son's heart out with the Bone Sword, and he will no longer love you at all.”

“Why both of us?” Ranadar was white-lipped now.

“If either of you is allowed to harbor this foolish love, you will spend your days trying to rekindle it in the other,” the queen said primly. “This will ensure that it ends.”

Walls were closing in around Talfi. There was no way out. The rest of his life, his long, undying life, would be spent without any hint of love for Ranadar, not even the memory of it. “You're willing to give up being a Gardener for this?” he said, hating the plaintive note in his voice but unable to keep it out.

“I always was, child,” she said.

“But you're still going to invade,” Talfi said.

“I am. You cannot stop that. But I will free Pendra from her tree.”

Ranadar grabbed Talfi's hand, and a jumble of emotions rocked him. Hatred for the queen. Despair for the upcoming loss. Fear for what his life was becoming. And through it all, a love, a
need
for Ranadar. He met Ranadar's eyes again and he saw hesitancy there. Ranadar was ready to refuse. He would let the Nine Worlds die rather than let Talfi go.

“My uppity elf,” Talfi said, and his voice caught.

“Talashka,”
he replied softly. “There must be another—”

Talfi raised his voice. “Do it!”

“Truly?” The queen looked triumphant. “Once I take your memories, they vanish forever. Not even the Nine can rebuild them.”

“I said do it,” Talfi said, still clutching Ranadar's hand. It was like holding both their hearts. He could feel Ranadar's
pulse beating with his own, and he never wanted to let go. He held on to the sensation, kept it close. She could not make him forget everything.

“Done!” The queen pressed her hand against Talfi's forehead and pulled it back. A ribbon of multicolored light followed her fingers. It coiled into her palm. The world shifted, took a hint of a tilt. Talfi leaned sideways, and only Ranadar's grip on his hand kept him upright. The queen drew the Bone Sword and swiped it through the coil of light. It shattered with a
pop
and vanished.

*   *   *

“It is done,” said the queen.Talfi realized he was still holding Ranadar's hand. It was rough and dry in his. Strange to be holding the hand of an elf. He pulled away and wiped his palm against his trousers. Ranadar made a small sound and turned away, as if he had something in his eye, but Talfi didn't care. Why should he? Ranadar was just an elf.

Talfi's mind shifted. He remembered. He remembered slipping away with Ranadar from the palace at Palana, walking in moonlight, stealing kisses, listening to Ranadar sing. He remembered giving his life for Ranadar, and more than once. He remembered laughing over their archery contests. And he remembered countless times of moving his body against Ranadar's. His skin prickled and a small shudder worked its way over him. He had prostituted himself to an elf. Talfi felt sick.

“You have cut my heart out once already, Mother,” Ranadar said quietly. “Are you ready to do it a second time, then?”

“In a moment,” said the queen.

“You have to fulfill the bargain,” Ranadar insisted. “You will free Pendra.”

“Of course I will. But first—”

The queen snapped her fingers and a pair of flesh golems, both disfigured, dragged over a golden tub, intricately inlaid
with silver ash branches and ivy. Gwylph drew the Bone Sword and pointed with it at the tree. Ranadar flinched. Talfi watched warily. Now what?

“The fairies feed blood to Pendra, and she produces a full flesh golem for us,” Gwlyph said. “But we are running out of material.”

Hard hands seized Talfi from behind. White-hot fear ripped through him and he struggled, but the flesh golems behind him were too strong. With hands exactly like his own because they
were
his own, they hauled him over to the tub and bent him backward over it. The bow on his back pressed awkwardly into his skin. Gwylph's face came into view above him. He looked up at the queen, into her glassy emerald eyes, and saw nothing behind them. No mortal sympathy, no love, no empathy. Her heart was long gone. She waved the Bone Sword under his nose, and his skin cried out for its touch.

“Mother, no!” Ranadar roared. He dashed toward them, but the queen gestured again and Ranadar flew backward. With a grunt, he plowed into the ground, sending up a cloud of dead leaves.

The queen said to Talfi, “You like this sword, child. I can see it.” Her voice was silk. Water. A leaf on a cold breeze. “Enjoy this, then.”

The golems held Talfi's arms outstretched in fleshy hands while the queen slashed open his chest with the Bone Sword. He felt the blade whisper through skin, muscle, and bone, but the white-hot pain that sliced through him also exhilarated him. It was delicious agony, delightful pain, happy anguish. He wanted more even as he babbled at the queen to stop. Ranadar was screaming somewhere in the distance, but Talfi barely heard. The queen's grinning face loomed over him, filled his universe with pleasurable pain.

“I will release Pendra,” she said. “But first your flesh and blood will create a hundred, a thousand, a million, golems for me.”

The Bone Sword dripped his blood, and the queen was careful to let it run into the tub. Talfi tried to respond, but he couldn't catch his breath under the glorious pain. Every sensation was sharp and unending—the warm blood running down his sides, the bruising grip of the golems at his wrists, the chill air running over his exposed lungs, the dead leaves rustling under his feet. This was going to be how every day went for the rest of his life. He hated the queen then, hated her for perverting the gift Death had given him, the gift he had died so many times to earn. His blood burned with the hatred. It ran like lava through him, gushed out his veins, and ran into the tub. The world dimmed. Talfi turned his head and saw one of the golems. For a moment, its—his—face reflected the same hatred Talfi felt, and with the insight that came just before death, Talfi understood. He and the golem didn't simply share blood. The golem's blood was Talfi's blood. The golem's flesh was Talfi's flesh.

“The First,” said the golem.

Something inside Talfi shifted, like a drop of blood finally gathering enough weight to fall. Instead of trying to pull away from the flesh golem, Talfi reached toward him. But it was more than a reaching with mere hands. It was reaching with blood and with bone.

“I'm you,” Talfi whispered, and died.

T
he
Slippery Fish
skimmed over the waves. Danr stood with Aisa at the bow with a wide, idiotic grin on his face. The speed was sensational. Glorious! He had thought riding a wyrm was the fastest thing in the world, but now they were outracing birds. Danr wanted to spread his arms and join them. Wind whipped through his ears, tugging at the thick felt hat tied under his chin. Speed or no speed, his half-troll shape still disliked the sun.

Beside him, Aisa looked more pensive. The breeze whipped at her skirts and loose blouse, teased at her hair, but she barely seemed to notice. Waves curled in white slices away from the prow, and she stared thoughtfully down at them.

Danr was about to ask what was on her mind when he felt it: a shift beneath his bare feet, as if the deck had become rippling sand for just a moment. Aisa's head came up.

“Did you feel that?” she asked in a distant voice.

“I did,” he replied, worried now. “What was it?”

“
Why
did you feel it?” she added.

Here he had no answer, and so he was able to shrug. “Is that important?”

“Ashkame tips and the world is sliding,” she said in the same distracted tone. “I can feel it more and more with
every passing moment because of my connection with Nu and Tan. I do not understand why
you
feel it. Or why you continue to come to the Garden. Or why you join in with the Gardeners' triple conversations.”

“I do?” Danr said. A pod of dolphins leaped in and out of the water just ahead of the ship, racing ahead of it, laughing in a strange language all their own.

“Too many times.” Aisa looked into the distance, her eyes glassy. “Something odd is happening to you.”

The ship slowed so fast that Danr was thrown off balance. He swayed. Aisa stumbled and would have fallen over if Danr hadn't caught her. Ahead lay the green, forested shore of Alfhame, and the ship coasted slowly toward it.

“Land ho?” said one of the sailors, and the others laughed nervously.

“Most fun I've had outside the bedroom,” Greenstone boomed, striding up to them in a heavy felt hat of her own.

A wide cleft opened between the trees, a cleft the width of a good-sized river, though no water poured from it. Nothing grew in the cleft, either, though the ocean lapped at it like a silvery cat's tongue.

“Is that—?” Danr began.

“The Sand River,” agreed Captain Greenstone. “Been dry for a thousand years.”

Danr eyed it speculatively, hands on the gunwale. “How long to walk to the Lone Mountain from here?”

“Three days, maybe four,” Greenstone said. “And that's if you don't get elves poking their heads up your arse.”

Aisa put her hand atop Danr's. It was hot and dry. “The Tree tips tonight.” Her voice changed. “After sunset.” It changed again. “Midnight.”

“Aisa, are you all right? What's wrong with you?”

“The Gardeners are fading,” Aisa said dreamily. “Slipping. Sliding.”

“Dying?” Danr's mouth was dry now. “What are we going to do, then? Maybe you could get there now. Change into a hawk and fly.”

“And face the queen alone.” Aisa's voice was a whisper of water across stone. “I do not have the power.”

Danr looked about frantically, as if the answer might be written in the rigging. “Then what do we do?”

The ocean gushed. With a rush of seawater, Grandfather Wyrm's great head rose from the ocean beside the ship. The sailors made a uniform sound of dismay and backed away, even though the great wyrm had been pushing the ship for the past two hours.

“Did you feel the earth move, yes?” he boomed. “The second earthquake?”

The pieces fell together. That had been the strange sensation Danr and Aisa had felt. “I did,” he called. “What did it mean?”

“The Tree tips, and the earth is sliding away, yes,” said Grandfather Wyrm in his deep, measured voice. “We have little time to stop the Fae queen. But the earthquake will help us. First, you will need the sails. Second, your captain must be ready at the helm for some skillful maneuvering. Follow me!”

Grandfather Wyrm plunged toward the shore. To Danr's awe, he didn't stop when he reached it. Instead he slammed straight into the cleft. A wave of sand and dirt exploded to the left and right banks of the old riverbed. Grandfather Wyrm's massive body plowed up the cleft, creating a channel that filled with seawater in his wake.

“Follow,” Aisa said, pointing.

“Harebones!” bellowed Greenstone. “Get the foresails up! Follow that wyrm!”

Danr gaped. “How is he doing that?”

“He uses Stane magic to change the shape of the earth.” Aisa's breath came quick and her pink tongue ran over her lips. “The Tree tips, Hamzu, and boundaries blur. Water becomes earth becomes fire. All magic is the same. We are all the same, yes.”

The
Fish
slid forward under creaking canvas. The end of Grandfather Wyrm's tail had already disappeared.
Seawater gushed into the channel, creating a current that helped move the ship forward. Greenstone had moved to the aft deck to take the helm herself. Danr ran back to join her, dragging the dazed Aisa with him. Worry chewed at him with cold teeth. She seemed between worlds, half in this one and half somewhere else. He didn't know how to help her, or if she even needed help. He was a truth-teller, but he didn't know what was going on. Danr looked at Aisa again. She was still clearly somewhere else. Was she dying like the other Gardeners? He had to find out.

There was only one way. But he had promised he would never look at her with his true eye again. Sworn.

Vik take it,
he thought.
Forgive me, Aisa.
He closed his right eye to look at her.

Everything around him vanished. Rotting air filled his nose with its heavy stench, and he found himself ankle-deep in mud and shit. The sickly light of the Garden twisted his eye and pounded at his brain. In all directions sprawled a tangle of dying, rotting plants. In the center of it all stood Aisa. She had one foot in the muck and one foot on the deck of the ship. Within her nestled the tiny, shining light of their son. Behind her stood the shadowy, emaciated figures of Nu and Tan, barely visible inside their ragged cloaks. And looming over them, taller than a castle, was the golden form of Queen Gwylph. The elf queen was leaning against the wall of Ashkame's bark. With a start, Danr realized she had always been there. She had merely loomed so large that he never noticed her, the way a rabbit never noticed a mountain. Ashkame's power was draining into her, and the great tree was rotting through and through as a result. It was leaning, tilting, tipping, and this time it wouldn't simply upend itself as it had done a hundred other times. It would crash into oblivion.

“Aisa!” Danr called.

“Do you have the Bone Sword yet?” Death strode up to him, eyes blazing. “It shouldn't take this long, boy.”

“Why don't you just kill her?” Danr gestured frantically at the giant Gwylph. “You're Death!”

“I told you, I can't touch her.” Death pulled a knitting needle from her hair and jabbed at Gywlph's golden shin. It rebounded as if her skin were granite. “See?”

“Is Aisa all right?” Danr demanded.

“Course she isn't. The Garden is dying, and she's connected to it. You only have a couple hours. After that, I'll get a rush of business and close up shop forever.”

“This wasn't supposed to happen!” Danr cried. “It wasn't supposed to be
me
! I'm just a farmer! I hoe rows and plant seeds and pull weeds. Why am I doing this?”

Death gave him a strange look from within the darkness that continually overshadowed her face. “If it makes you feel better, child, you're nothing special. Your seed just ended up in the right row at the right time. Otherwise someone else would be standing here bawling like a wounded calf. The only difference is that if you keep feeling sorry for yourself, we're all dead. Including me. Now get!”

She jabbed him with a bony finger, and his right eye popped open in surprise. He was standing next to the still-dazed Aisa and Greenstone next to the helm of the
Fish.
The
Fish
was just entering the new channel, and Greenstone was staring intently ahead.

“Where'd you go, handsome?” she asked.

“The Garden,” he said shortly. “The whole world is dead in two hours if we don't get the Bone Sword.”

Greenstone's fingers went white on the wheel. “I don't know if we'll make it. Even with this current, the—”

For a moment, the
Fish
halted, then drifted backward a little. Greenstone glanced over her shoulder. “Vik and Halza humping on hardwood! Foresails down! All hands brace!”

Sailors scuttled around the deck, repeating her order to one another. Several secured loose equipment. The sails collapsed like dying clouds.

“What is it? Why are we moving backward?” Danr spun, trying to understand what was going on. The water level in the channel, indeed in the entire ocean, seemed to be dropping.

“Now I know what that damn wyrm meant by a second earthquake,” Greenstone muttered. “We're in for it now.”

“For
what
?” Danr grabbed her shoulder.

“Tidal wave.”

A wall of water skimmed over the horizon and rushed toward the shore. Danr's insides shrank to see it coming. This was a force of nature. It had no thoughts, no emotions. It didn't care what lay in its way or what happened to anyone or anything. There was no way to fight it or stop it. It would simply happen the way it happened. Danr grabbed the unresisting Aisa with one arm, wrapped the other around a set of ropes, and prayed aloud to the Nine.

“The Nine don't have shit to do with it, handsome,” Greenstone said. “Gonna depend on how good a pilot I am. Just like that damn wyrm said.”

The wave slammed into them. It created a chaotic wash big enough to engulf a city at the mouth of the channel and rushed inward. The roar was a thousand angry lions. The
Fish
bolted forward, bobbing like a toy in a torrent. The sailors shouted. Wood creaked. Danr's stomach dropped, then came up, then went back down again. Wind rushed past his ears. He clutched Aisa hard.

“Hang on, handsome!” Greenstone yelled. “Gonna be the ride of your Vik-sucking life!”

The
Fish
pinged from side to side along the newly carved channel, jerking and jolting and smashing as it went. With every crunch and crack, Greenstone bellowed in protest, as if she herself were hit. The saltwater river bellowed back, challenging her, but Greenstone kept her powerful hands on the spoked helm.

“Wyrm ahead!” shouted Danr.

They were indeed catching up with Grandfather Wyrm, who was still using his great body to plow the channel
deep enough for the ship. But also ahead now Danr could see Lone Mountain rising out of the forest. Earth and sand spouted out on either side of Grandfather Wyrm, covering the trees as he rushed ahead while the
Fish
came roaring up behind.

“Go, Grandfather!” The shout tore itself from Danr's throat before he even thought. “Go! You can do it!”

He didn't know if Grandfather Wyrm heard him, but the wyrm seemed to speed up. The
Fish
careened ahead. It slammed into the left bank, recovered, and rushed on. The mountain loomed bigger. They were almost there. But Grandfather Wyrm was tiring. The
Fish
was catching up with him, and they had a good quarter mile to go. Moving so much earth was draining even his mighty reserves. Danr stared helplessly at him as the ship rushed closer. What—?

And then he remembered the day he had gotten his own power of the shape. Grandfather Wyrm had bitten off Danr's hand to force Danr to change shape. He flexed his regrown hand in sympathy of that moment. His blood. Giving his blood to someone else let that person share his power. And Aisa said Danr had a
lot
of power.

Danr closed his right eye. Grandfather Wyrm . . . changed. The wyrm was still there, but deep within it was a human, a man, the shape mage Grandfather Wyrm had been before the Sundering. Danr also saw a thin golden line running from his hand to Grandfather Wyrm. Exhaling hard, Danr thrust out his hand and
pushed.

Power pulsed from his hand, zipped down the line, and infused Grandfather Wyrm's body. He paused a tiny moment and raised his head. Then he plowed forward again with renewed vigor. Sand and earth vaulted high into the air, and the
Fish
zipped along in its wake, pushed by the current and the remains of the tidal wave. Danr pushed more and more power, feeling the strength drain from his muscles. He went to his knees as Grandfather Wyrm boomed forward.

“Almost there!” Greenstone shouted. “A few more seconds!”

The last of Danr's strength left him. He brought his hand down. Ahead of them, Grandfather Wyrm reached the base of the mountain. With the last of Danr's energy, he bored around the western side and headed for the River Bal. Greenstone frantically spun the helm so the ship would follow.

“Captain!” A sailor scrambled up to the poop deck. “We're taking on a lot of water. Cracks in the hold.”

“Get a full crew on the bilge pumps,” she snapped. “Double time!”

“You're taking a beating,” Danr panted.

“We all are, handsome,” said Greenstone grimly.

The ship bumped and smacked its way around the mountain, slower now. Every jolt drew a grunt from Greenstone, as if the mountain were hitting her own bones. They hove fully around it and on the other side stood the biggest tree Danr had seen this side of Ashkame. It shaded the river that flowed west, and Danr also noted both the biggest Fae army the world had ever seen camped just beyond it.

Grandfather Wyrm had put on a final burst of burrowing. In moments, he would smash through the last piece of earth standing between the Sand River and the River Bal. When that happened, the water from the Bal would wash them backward. His eyes met Greenstone's, and he knew she had the same thought.