Iron Axe (30 page)

“Release!”
Their cold whisper made Aisa shudder.

Kalessa yanked the chains and hurried the group along. A number of Fae stared briefly, then went on their business. The elves took slaves in tribute from the Kin in Balsia and Irbsa, but since elven glamour stole away Kin fertility, and since the elves were hard on their slaves, slaves neither lasted long, nor reproduced. The elves always needed more slaves than the tribute agreements allowed, so they bought more. An orc slave trader in Palana was therefore an oddity, but not unheard of.

“This place is familiar,” Talfi said softly. He looked about as if in a daze and inhaled hard. “The smells. It's like remembering a story from a long time ago. Around the corner there will be a small butcher's market beneath a beech tree.”

There was. A cluster of booths run by fairies sold meat ready for the cook pot. Aisa licked her lips. “You've been here before, then. Before you died.”

“I think so.”

“The only humans in Alfhame are slaves. You must have been addicted like me.” A bit of hope clutched her heart. “How—?”

“It's like Hamzu and I thought.” Talfi shifted in his shackles, and they clanked. “When I die, I start over.”

The hope extinguished, and Aisa dropped her head. “So if you form an attachment to your new master, we only need kill you,” she couldn't help saying.

“I'd rather you didn't.”

“You have no idea what you're saying,” she whispered.

Hamzu stumbled and went to his knees with a low cry. Aisa went to him. Kalessa sighed heavily, as if annoyed that her prize slave had tripped.

“What is it?” she hissed in his ear.

“The drums.” His voice was hoarse. “I can feel the Stane drums. Like I did in the caves. They're loud and powerful. I think the spells are ready, and they're going to open the doors. Tonight. We have to get the Axe!”

“We need not worry about the Stane,” Aisa murmured, helping him up. “They're in Balsia, and all the armies are in Palana. It will take two weeks or more for the Stane to march here.”

“But the stars are coming together tonight,” Hamzu pointed out.

“Which way, which way?” Kalessa said as if to herself, and Aisa remembered with a start that
she
was supposed to point the way. The haft of the Iron Axe only responded to Aisa, so Kalessa couldn't use it to guide them to the head. Aisa slid her hands down the haft and let the pull come over her. The head was close; she could feel it. She let the haft draw her toward a trio of gigantic ash trees that supported an equally gigantic house of polished wood and glittering glass that, like all elven houses, looked as if it had grown out of the trees themselves. It was horrifyingly, hauntingly familiar.

“The palace,” Aisa whispered. “The head is in the palace. Where I was once a slave.”

“Will they recognize you?” Kalessa murmured.

Aisa's heart was pounding and fine sweat broke out along her hairline, but she shook her head. “It was years ago, and to elves, all humans look as alike as grasshoppers.”

“Then why didn't you come back after you were exiled?” Talfi said. “You could have arranged to be sold to someone else and—”

Aisa rounded on him. “I would rather live all my days in hunger than feast upon filth!”

“Quiet, slaves,” Kalessa said as a pair of fairies passed within hearing. Aisa hushed herself, and let Kalessa drag her toward the palace. Her back straight, Kalessa climbed a delicate-looking staircase into the branches to a side door and pounded on it. It opened by itself, revealing a luminescent sprite. It seemed to be a glowing ball of light hovering in the door, but when Aisa looked at it more closely, she could see the wavering form within. The sprite flickered and another Kalessa was standing in the doorway. Aisa remembered sprites changing shape during her previous time in Alfhame, but it was still unnerving to watch.

“Slaves from an orc,” the sprite Kalessa said. “You sell cares with your wares.”

“I sell the finest,” Kalessa interrupted. “And only to your master.”

“The king does not buy slaves himself, the elf,” giggled the sprite. “My name is RigTag Who Sings Over the Stormy Sky, and you may sell to me, you see.”

Kalessa folded her arms. “I do not sell high-class slaves to underlings.”

Aisa's jaw tightened. Kalessa was pushing too hard, too far. The object was to get them into the palace, and quickly. Slaves went everywhere, and they could look for the Axe head in relative anonymity, since elven slaves never—almost never—disobeyed their masters and were trusted everywhere once they were addicted.

And that was the key. Aisa herself did not worry about becoming addicted to the Fae. She already was. The Stane did not become addicted, and Talfi, who had insisted on coming along, had his own way out, if he needed it. The basic plan was that once they used the haft to locate the head of the Iron Axe, they would figure out a way to steal it,
hopefully within a day or two. They couldn't plan better than that, since they didn't know how well the head was guarded, but Aisa suspected it would not be. The Axe head was useless without the heft and the power, and after a thousand years of easy rule, it seemed likely to Aisa that the luxury-loving elves would treat the head more as a curiosity than an artifact of great power.

However, before all, they had to be sold into the palace, and Kalessa had fallen too deeply into her role of arrogant slave dealer. Aisa was trying to think of a way to signal Kalessa when an elven lord strode toward them. Aisa's breath caught, and beside her, Talfi drew in a sharp gasp. The lord was beautiful, even by elven standards. His hair was the color of maple leaves in autumn, and his wide eyes were the intense green of twining ivy. His face was chiseled from finest marble, and the intensity of his eyes contrasted sharply with his fair skin. Rather than the usual elaborate robes or heavy dresses favored by the other elves, he wore a tunic and half boots of heavy brown silk. Aisa wanted to beg him to touch her with one of his long, supple hands.

“What's this?” he asked in a light, boyish tenor. “All this shouting is—oh!” He caught sight of Kalessa and her charges. He blinked heavily, and his perfect face blanched a little.

The sprite popped back into its normal chaotic shape and bobbed uncertainly in the doorway. “My lord Ranadar, this orc—”

Kalessa jumped in. “I am selling exotics, great lord, and the sprite prevents me from presenting them to you. If Your Lordship would only—”

“I'll buy the lot,” Ranadar said. His voice was shaking. “Give the orc what she wants and take the new slaves to the baths for cleansing.”

“My lord!” said the sprite, shocked. “You are the son, the
one, who is done of the king, the thing. It is unseemly, meanly, that you buy—”

Ranadar punched the sprite hard. Its light dimmed sharply, and it dipped in midair, nearly falling to the ground. “Are you questioning me, creature?”

“C-certainly not. Rot!” the sprite whimpered.

“Good.” Ranadar stalked away.

Aisa utterly failed to conceal her surprise and she exchanged glances with Hamzu and Talfi, who seemed as startled as she was. Only Kalessa appeared unfazed.

“Three thousand in silver,” she said, a scandalous price, “and I'll need a room for myself in the palace for several days.”

The sprite, its light still dim, paused a moment, then said, “It will b-be, you see, as His Highness Lord Ranadar wishes, like f-fishes and dishes.”

A pouch of coins dropped into Kalessa's open palm, and the sprite, weaving dazedly, led them through the luxurious palace and past a number of other black-clad human slaves who barely noticed even Hamzu. They performed their tasks in a happy haze that Aisa recognized all too well. All of them had been taken from somewhere else, ripped away from family and friends and sold here, just as Aisa herself had been. A young man carried a chamber pot as if it were filled with gold. A little girl no more than seven scrubbed floors with a small smile on her face, not noticing the raw blisters on her hands. Aisa's outrage overwhelmed her hunger for a moment, and she gripped the haft even tighter.
This
was why she was here.
This
had to end.

The haft seemed to tug at her in response. The head was close by. Aisa could feel it.

The sprite took them to a bathing room and bobbled away. The room was sticky and humid, with several sets of small
private bathing stalls—Aisa remembered stoking the great tubs of water on the roof that granted hot running water—where two smiling slaves helped them bathe and change into the loose black trousers and shirts that marked all slaves. A single small window, too small to climb through, overlooked empty air, and the blue lake beyond.

They bathed quickly. Aisa chewed her lip. How were they going to find the Axe with only a few hours to spare? When they finished dressing, Kalessa, without turning a hair, locked silver slave collars around their necks. Aisa caught no indication that she was anything but a slave trader who had struck a nice bargain. That hurt a little, necessary as it was. Then Kalessa ordered the bath slaves to leave, and they did.

“How are the drums, Hamzu?” Aisa asked.

“I'm all right.” He passed a large hand over his face. “They just caught me by surprise. But I can still feel them. Sunset at the latest.”

Another surprise came to them. Just as Talfi was pulling on his tunic, the door opened and Ranadar stormed into the room. Before anyone could react, he strode up to the startled Talfi and grabbed both his hands.

“How is it possible?” he demanded.
“How?”

“My lord!” Kalessa barked. “You can't—”

But Ranadar kissed Talfi full on the lips. Talfi stiffened and his eyes slid shut. Aisa tightened her grip on the haft. She knew all too well what Talfi was feeling, and she both envied and pitied him. Kalessa's eyes met Aisa's. Her hand moved toward the shape-shifting sword at her belt, and Aisa's hands tightened on the heft. Maybe they should kill Ranadar now, hide the body, and move for the Axe head. Maybe they could—

Ranadar broke the kiss. Talfi staggered and opened his eyes. “Ran!” he gasped. “Vik and Halza, it's you! Ran!”

“How?” Ranadar repeated. His voice was hoarse, and it
sounded strange in an elf. “You died. Father cut your throat when he learned about us. He made me watch while Mother applauded.”

“The dream man,” Hamzu said in shock. “Red hair.”

Talfi's face was ice pale. “How long ago was that?”

“One hundred forty-seven years. Not that I haven't counted every day.”

“I should have charged more,” muttered Kalessa.

“Is anyone watching us, my lord?” Aisa said quietly.

Ranadar's demeanor shifted. His face became more arrogant, his voice harder. “Of course not, girl. I should lash you for—”

Talfi put a hand over Ranadar's mouth. “Still the uppity elf.”

“Rolk!” Ranadar crushed Talfi to him in a rush of emotion, not seeming to care that two other slaves and an orc were watching. “Only you would dare call me that. How,
Talashka
? I saw you die.”

“I don't know,” Talfi said. “I die and come back, but every time I do, my memory disappears—until you kissed me and brought some of it back, anyway.”

“Wait!” Hamzu rumbled. “Do you remember all the last hundred-some years?”

“He speaks!” Ranadar said, taken aback.

“How about that!” Talfi said. “We found a way for you to lie. Sort of.”

“I still think I charged too little,” Kalessa grumbled.

“What is going on?”
Ranadar shouted.

Aisa glided to the door and locked it. Ranadar clearly had no talent for subterfuge, and under other circumstances, she might have found his revelation about Talfi fascinating, but the Axe haft was tugging her toward the head, which was less than twenty or thirty paces away, and Ranadar was proving an obstacle. She shifted the haft, thick and heavy, in her hand.

Talfi caught what Aisa was up to. He stepped between her and Ranadar, who seemed unable to comprehend that he was in any kind of peril. “He wouldn't do anything to hurt us. We were planning to run away together when his father caught us.”

“The worst day of my life,
Talashka.
” Ranadar couldn't seem to stop touching Talfi, on his face, his arm, his shoulders. “And now you're here. It's real. Tell me everything.”

Talfi started to speak, but Kalessa's sword was in her hand. With a quiet sound, it changed into a long, iron sword. Ranadar hissed through his teeth and groped for his own blade, but Kalessa's sword at his throat stopped him.

“He is Fae,” Kalessa said. “He will betray us to his own people in a moment. We should kill him.”

“I must agree,” Aisa said grimly. It was growing more and more difficult to stand in the hot, steamy room with the elf and his damn beautiful hands. “Elves live for elves, no one else.”

“You will pay for that insolence, human girl,” Ranadar growled.

“That human girl is my sister,” Kalessa retorted, “and for the rest of your short life, you will treat her with—”

“He won't hurt us!” Talfi interrupted. “I know he can be snotty, but—”

“What?” Ranadar said.

“—he
loves
me. It's a lot to take in, I know, but believe me. I remember now. I was captured by slavers and sold here a long time ago. Ranadar bought me. He looked a lot different then.” He turned to Ranadar. “Your hair was longer, and you didn't dress like this.”

“You are addicted to him now,” Aisa pointed out. “You would believe anything he says.”

Talfi thought a moment, then shook his head. “No. I want
him, but I don't need him. I mean, I do, but . . . not the way you do, Aisa.”

Aisa didn't know whether to feel relief, envy, or anger, so she merely closed her mouth.