After Dennis had taken his shirt off, of course.
At least Dennis had felt less like a slab of beef and merely an object of interest once Du Ko had started working.
It had surprised Dennis that the Longians produced an acidic spit that would dissolve marble. Du Ko would spit into his hands, look at Dennis, then look back at the rock and use his hands to shape it. Sometimes he used a chisel, but mostly the artist molded the stone.
The work in progress had remained behind a large screen so that Dennis couldn’t see it.
Finally, though, the unveiling was at hand.
“Welcome, welcome!” Du Ko said as Dennis and Christine stepped through the portal. At Dennis’s suggestion, Christine had worn her human guise, appearing more like the sister he’d grown up with.
Du Ko handed them both a glass filled with what looked like a sparkling rosé, though Dennis knew from experience that it had more of a raspberry flavor, sweet and light.
“Thank you,” Christine said as she took the glass. She looked around, obviously uncomfortable. “Nice place,” she still said. Trolls were all about good earth and living underground. Being this high up in the trees, surrounded by wood, wasn’t her thing at all.
Du Ko beamed at her. “Thank you, princess,” he said. “It’s the first test of a true artist to be able to create their own space.”
Dennis nodded as he accepted his own glass. He’d heard the story before. He wasn’t about to tell Du Ko that these sorts of spaces came naturally to humans. While the Longian had turned out to be okay, he still had a lot of prejudice when it came to humans, as well as a true hatred for trolls. No matter what Dennis said about the virtues of his sister, Du Ko had an anecdote or a story that countered it.
While getting the artist to create the statue had been a success, even the promise of a general unveiling in a public ceremony hadn’t been enough enticement to get Du Ko to join the side of the kith and kin.
However, at least Dennis had the feeling that the Longians would remain neutral and not go fight on the side of the demons.
“First off, I’d like to thank my patron, Princess Kizalynn Linumok Te’Dur,” Du Ko announced, holding his glass up in a toast, as if practicing the speech he’d give at a public unveiling.
Christine nodded and played the part, giving the Longian a huge smile.
Huh. She almost looked sincere.
“Next, I need to thank my muse, Dennis,” Du Ko said, raising his glass to Dennis. “Nothing is possible without inspiration,” he continued.
“And finally, I thank my family, as well as the Creator, for giving me the opportunity to continue to express my truest self. Blessed be!” he called out, raising his glass to the air for the final toast.
“Blessed be,” Dennis intoned in response. He nudged Christine to get her to do the same.
Really, had she not learned anything from dealing with the other kith and kin?
“Without further ado, I’d like to show you my latest masterpiece,” Du Ko said. He walked to the side of the statue that dominated the center of the studio, discretely covered by a huge cloth. “I call it, The Torso.”
With three hands, the Longian pulled away the cloth.
“Ohhh,” Dennis said, as he’d prepared himself to.
It was, of course, different than what he’d expected.
It looked nothing like a torso. Du Ko, like the rest of the Longians, wasn’t into representational art. That was beneath them. Only weirdos or painters did that.
The piece looked very similar to the first piece of artwork that Dennis had seen by the Longian. The base was round, solid, and well-polished. Growing up from there were four round limbs, intertwining. However, instead of all of them reaching up, only three did. One flowed out from roughly the center of the piece, reaching down, tapering off before it reached the end of the base. The other three appeared to be stretching up, reaching for different prizes.
Dennis had no idea what the heck it meant.
“Could the artist give some more commentary on his work? So that I can explain it better when I show it,” Christine said.
Dennis nodded his approval. That was a really nice touch.
“Of course!” Du Ko beamed at the pair of them. “The four branches represent the four aspects of my muse, of course,” he said. “The first is the root, the family, from which everything else flows.”
Dennis could see that now that Du Ko had mentioned it. But what were the other three aspects?
“Then, we have the striving for immortality that all humans inherently reach for,” Du Ko said, a touch of chiding in his voice.
Immortality? Really? Him? Huh. Dennis hadn’t thought he did that. But maybe that was just Du Ko’s generally opinion of humans.
“There’s the fighting aspect, of course,” Du Ko said, pointing toward one limb that appeared to be reaching back, behind the statue. “Then there’s the mating part.”
When Dennis looked closely, he could see that the end of the limb was split into many smaller branches, merely hinted at with indentations, not actually separated.
“Then there is the greatest part of all—man’s attempt to reach for the arts, to become one with the Creator,” Du Ko said, indicating the limb that reached straight upward.
“Very interesting,” Christine said, taking a step forward. “May I?” she asked, indicating that she wanted to walk all the way around the statue.
“Be my guest,” Du Ko beamed.
Dennis stayed where he was, studying the front of the piece.
Was that him? Was that his piece? Was that the piece that Christine needed in order to assemble the obelisk of truth?
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to feel if the piece tugged at him, gave him some indication of rightness.
He felt nothing.
Dennis didn’t want to admit it; however, he was very much afraid that he was going to be letting his sister down. This wasn’t the piece, wasn’t his piece.
“Why don’t you take a closer look?” Du Ko suggested in a quiet voice.
Dennis merely nodded and walked forward. How could he explain to the Longian what he was feeling? That he didn’t see any part of himself in this sculpture?
It wasn’t until Dennis got very close, almost on top of it, that he finally saw the words. They were very faint, scratched with a thin line across the top of the torso.
Born ready.
That was it. That was what had been missing. Suddenly, Dennis felt in tune with the rock. It was an odd sensation, as if his own torso had momentarily been replaced with the statue, those four limbs reaching out for immortality, infinity, future and past all at the same time.
He took a deep gulp of air and stepped back, overwhelmed. He blinked rapidly. Damn it! He wasn’t about to cry. Not now. Not here.
“Thank you,” Dennis said, looking up at the Longian.
Christine shot him a worried look.
Dennis used his palms to squish out the tears that had suddenly formed. He understood, now, everything that the Longian had been trying to say, how Dennis was searching for some sort of immortality, something bigger than himself.
Was this why humans had such a fervent belief in God? That was never going to be Dennis’s way. Instead, he was going to force his way into something bigger than himself. Like a family. Like the war.
“You see,” Du Ko said, his voice reverent. “I didn’t know if you would, if a human could truly appreciate the higher art of the Longians.”
Dennis didn’t roll his eyes, though it was a close thing. Of course, the Longians considered themselves the highest on the food chain. Most of the kith and kin did to some extent, though the Longians took it to an extreme.
Du Ko heaved a deep sigh. “I have a confession to make,” he said slowly. “I’ve failed at my conversations with the others, to get the Longians as a race to commit to your war,” he said, nodding at Christine.
“Thank you for trying,” Dennis said. And he meant it. He hadn’t thought that Du
Ko had been listening to any of his stories.
“I have gotten a small continent of fighters, however, to join the cause,” Du Ko said. He nodded his head at Christine. “Given your approval, of course.”
“I will happily take any warriors you can muster,” she said sincerely. She gave him a wide grin. “Though I cannot guarantee their survival.”
Dennis nodded. That was generally the right tactic to take with the kith and kin. Tell them that they were about to die in glorious battle. It was what some of the races appeared to live for.
“Then I am glad that I finished this one final masterpiece,” Du Ko said.
“As am I,” Dennis chimed in.
“Maybe after the war, you will sit for me again,” Du Ko said. “I have some ideas…”
“Gladly,” Dennis said. “After the war.”
He didn’t know if there would be an after the war for him. For his family. For anyone he knew.
Still, he vowed to keep a hopeful attitude.
After all, he had been born ready for all of this.
Chapter Eighteen
Nik knew better.
Really. He did.
He just couldn’t seem to help himself, though. It wasn’t that he was being influenced by demons, or even by humans. It just…it seemed like the right thing to do, though he knew it wasn’t.
But when the Risilodan, or the rowdy boys as Christine called them, came in for supplies, he found himself making some suggestions even before they asked for his help.
And possibly, maybe, he suggested the ingredients that an enterprising young magic worker could use to counter the spell that he’d just sold to the demons who’d just left.
Nik couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. He did not do that sort of thing. He was neutral. He sold to all parties. He did not give advice like this to the demons. Why was he giving it to the rowdy boys? Without being asked?
As soon as the rowdy boys left, Nik flipped the portals closed. He didn’t want any more visitors, not until he figured this out.
He walked back into the backroom, letting the heavy curtain cut him off from the rest of the world. The workbench was clear, though boxes still lined the shelves on the walls. Nik had thought about just putting all those boxes back into the warehouse, as they continued to remind him that Christine hadn’t come by to work for him in ages.
Then again, there was the possibility that the empty shelves would be worse.
He pulled together the ingredients to run spells meant to detect influence, demonic or otherwise. Good French lavender, aged red cedar bark, sand from what was now known as Saudi Arabia, dried black-widow spider webs, dust from a forgotten tomb, crumbled charcoal.
At the completion of the first spell, tiny tracks showed up in the crumbled charcoal, as if it had been brushed with a feather.
Huh. Heavenly influence? But a really light touch, if it existed at all.
However, every spell he ran after that, the charcoal remained completely flat, which meant that there was no influence, demonic or heavenly, skewing Nik’s actions.
The first indication must have been a fluke, a false positive.
Those happened. It was why Nik always included double the amount of ingredients for certain spells, encouraging the magicians to run those spells more than once.
Influence detection spells were notoriously finicky, as well as not practical and occasionally unreliable. Ages ago, Nik had believed the outcome of the simple spells he’d cast, when he’d been human, not realizing that he’d already been corrupted, the demons influencing his thoughts and actions. He had perfected the spells he currently used over the centuries, and felt fairly confident in their reliability.
Still, that first false positive worried him. Particularly when he heard the whooshing sound that only a pair of heavy, powerful wings could make.
With a sigh, Nik put aside his spell ingredients and walked back out into the main room.
The angel dominated the room, despite the tall ceilings and multiple rows of shelves. Nik automatically squinted up at the lights, trying to determine what setting they were on.
It never hurt to check what level of light an angel might prefer for shopping. That sort of knowledge might come in handy someday.
But the angel cast too much of her own damned glow for him to be able to tell.
She wore gray robes that afternoon that flowed down to the ground, with no sleeves. That indicated this was more of a social call. The official uniform called for the brightest white robes and completely covered up.
Her hair was still the same bright shining gold that Nik remembered from all those years ago. Her eyes were gray, like morning storm clouds. They always seemed familiar, even the first time he’d met her. She had dark skin, almost incongruous with her blonde hair, except she made it work. Her features were petite, her nose small, her lips thin, her perfect, shell-like ears just peeking out from under her bob.
“Svetlana,” Nik said. He forced himself to smile, though he had no idea if the spell that animated his painted on features worked with angels.
As she gave him a quick smile back, he had to assume that it was. At least for now.
“Nikolai,” she said, her smile growing sad. “Why did you recommend the disarming crystals and the red oak potions to your most recent clients?”
“Honestly Svetlana? I don’t know,” he said. “I was just running influence spells in the back, to see if I could figure out why. But I don’t believe I’m under any sort of influence.” Nik hadn’t meant to tell her that. Just her presence seemed to always loosen his tongue.
“You know that helping one client to the detriment of others endangers your neutrality,” Svetlana warned. “You must be more careful. Particularly since you turned in that demon book of accounting.”
Nik nodded. It had been over five years since he’d given that book to the Host. Still, he’d known at the time that it had looked bad.
“You know that it wasn’t because I wasn’t neutral that I turned that in, right? I turned it in because it proved that members of the Host had been compromised,” Nik pointed out.
“Which is why no one came to warn you when you did it,” Svetlana replied. “However. The advice you just gave was not neutral. You were using information you’d just gained from your demon clients to aid your non-demon clients, ones in direct conflict.”
Nik hung his head. He knew better. He did! “I don’t know what happened,” Nik said softly.
He knew that the angel wouldn’t touch him. Still, her soft voice felt as warm and as light as a caress. “You must see that it doesn’t happen again.”
Nik’s head came up. “Or else?” he asked. He knew what she might say. He needed to hear her actually say it.
“Or else you will have broken our agreement,” Svetlana said. Her voice changed from comforting to whip-cracking hard. “I will be forced to end our bargain. You will no longer be able to inhabit this wooden being.”
“I will die,” Nik said flatly.
The angel gave him a sad smile. “In a way, yes. But—”
“I know, I know,” Nik interrupted. Heavenly ever after wasn’t what he considered an ideal existence. He paused, then added, “Christine is on a quest, sent by the oracles.”
Svetlana nodded. “And you are to have no part of it.”
“But—”
“None,” Svetlana said, her voice thundering like doom across the shop. “If you value your precious immortality, such as it is, you cannot help her. That would be in direct conflict with your neutrality.”
Nik sighed. “Understood.”
The angel sighed as well. “I wish it wasn’t that way,” she said. “But if wishes were horses…”
“Everyone would ride,” Nik replied. It was an old saying, something his grandmother had possibly told him.
“Exactly.” Svetlana paused. “It was good to see you again, Nikolai.”
Nik wasn’t sure why she had such a wistful tone in her voice. Or maybe he was jus
t imagining it. “It was a pleasure,” he assured her.
Though that wasn’t exactly true. After the angel disappeared (again, with that great swooping sound, as if she actually flew out of his shop instead of just vanishing) Nick always felt a great disquiet. As if he were a disappointment to the angel.
No matter. She was just another angel.
Nik walked back into his backroom and cleaned up all the ingredients there.
He didn’t know what he was going to do when Christine came and asked him for the mirror of truth. He’d been hoping that if he bargained hard enough, he’d be able to just sell it to her.
Could he hand it to someone else? Have them sell it to her?
Why did Svetlana consider Nik giving the mirror to Christine to be going against his neutrality? Was it because Christine didn’t have to fight or give up anything in order to get it?
Or was it because Nik would gladly give it to her, because it meant that she’d finally have a fighting chance? That it would mean the difference between the demons winning the war, or Christine and the kith and kin?
Try as he might, Nik couldn’t remember when he’d acquired that mirror. He felt as if he’d always had it. Had Svetlana given it to him? Maybe.
He pulled the mirror out of its pocket space again. This time, he removed the lace doily from the front of it.
A human face stared back at him. Nik vaguely recognized it. The face had once been his. His wooden face resembled it, with the same dark eyebrows and wide-set eyes. But the man who stared out at him had more expression than Nik could ever manage with his spells, with soulful eyes and crinkles around his mouth that showed this man smiled often.
With a sigh, Nik covered the mirror back up and placed it into the pocket space again. The mirror showed the truth of whatever it was reflecting. Nik didn’t understand why it showed his human face and not his wooden one, but he’d come to understand it showed the spirit of the thing, not the covering.
Nik straightened up and flipped the portals for the store to open again.
The Troll-Human War Page 14
