Aluminum Leaves

by Marion Deeds

  And Trevian had the map, the copy she had let him keep against her first impulse. It wasn’t just her life at risk now, it was many worlds, since Vianovelle had found a way to cross a frontera and bring his elementals with him.

  She sank down on her knees and put her hands over her face. She wanted to cry, but she was afraid to even do that. She had failed. She had failed everyone.

  “Why would you think she brings evil? How can you know these things?” Trevian said.

  Uncle Oshane hitched his scarf higher up around his throat. He wore late winter clothing: thick trousers, a jacket, and a scarf over his shirt, although it was summer. The sunlight deepened the furrows on his face. “Did she tell you her true name?”

  “Erin Dosmanos.”

  His uncle nodded. “She is a Dosmanos. They and some others named themselves the Four Families as if they had a sacred duty. That is a lie. When the world turned, Trevian, life fell into chaos. Cities collapsed. People died of starvation, of disease, or by elementals. There were copper-hunters even then, and scholars, and they studied the elementals. Some say they began the studies before the elementals freed themselves. They knew what was coming, but they said and did nothing. Instead, they gathered tools and weapons, things that would have helped us, and they took them away. The Dosmanos family fled with a treasure that we needed, here, to survive. Now come inside. I assure you, she is safe within the town limits.”

  Trevian stood. It was not true that Erin was safe within the town. Perhaps his uncle’s ward kept out elementals, but the ground was rutted and uneven. A building could topple or a hole open up with no warning. And yet his uncle spoke of Erin as if he knew her. And perhaps his explanation would shed some light on the book. He nodded and followed his uncle back inside to the copper room.

  As they stepped into the room, Uncle Oshane staggered. Trevian stepped to his side and caught his arm. “The ward again?”

  “No. The work I do takes its toll.” Uncle Oshane moved to the table. He sat down heavily, as if his knees wouldn’t quite hold him. He was older than Trevian’s father, but the energy in his smile and the sparkle in his eyes had always made Trevian forget that. And even with the huge pillar of copper, it took energy to maintain such a charm. He didn’t see how a single man, one who wasn’t a copper-hunter, could do it.

  “You know of the gaps between worlds, those openings called fronteras,” his uncle said as Trevian moved a chair out and sat down. “Your mother used to speak of them before my brother would shout her to silence. Once, when you were just a twig of a boy, you started to tell a story about them, and Oswald clouted you so hard you nearly fell into the fire. Do you remember?”

  Trevian nodded. He remembered only the blow, the singing in his ears, and the heat of the fire on his face. He didn’t remember his uncle being there.

  “Well, I’m sure your flatland grandmother told you many more such tales, and they are true.” His uncle poured a shot of lick from the pitcher into a cup. His hand shook slightly as he did so. “There are places where some people, people with charms, copper-hunters or other magickers, can cross from one world to another. And there are many worlds, Trevian. Many.”

  Trevian thought of the stack of paper in his knapsack.

  His uncle sipped and swallowed. “Some worlds seemed linked in a way, as if they had been a single world at one time, then somehow split the way wood will burl on the trunk of a tree. There are five worlds, for instance, like ours, with elementals. Your companion came from one of those worlds.”

  “Her world has no elementals.”

  Uncle Oshane snorted. He took two more quick swallows as if he were trying to drown laughter. “The elementals there haven’t awakened, haven’t found their freedom. And they won’t because her people enslave them. You turned away from Oswald because he imprisons fire elementals, Nephew, but her world has enslaved all the air and fire. They have poisoned their earth, the very earth, killing most of the earth elementals. Those enslaved beings garner a few of them riches and power, the greatest of luxuries, but they do not share. Her people don’t stop at enslaving the elementals. Did she tell you that they enslave each other?”

  Trevian’s breath left him at the thought of such a thing. Of course Erin had said nothing. “How can you know this?”

  “I’ve seen their world. I have been to it. Your grandfather was a drunken failure, and everything he touched rotted under his fingers. He was half-turvy, but only half. His ramblings, his self-indulgent scribblings in his notebooks held bits of truth, and I’ve spent my life prospecting them. It has been a hard and thankless life, but I have learned much, and I have seen the other worlds. Some have much to offer, and some must be stopped before they infect the others.”

  “Did you, did you send those creatures after us? They killed her parents, you know.”

  “I sent them only to protect you on your journey. She is lying if she speaks of killing.”

  “They killed a prospector. I saw them.”

  Uncle Oshane looked down at the table. “If you say you saw them, then…safe journey and good rest to that one, then. I did not know. The creatures must have been provoked, or frightened. They serve me, and there is no profit in ordering them to kill.”

  “They were not provoked. What are they? They form bodies from the earth, but their centers are flame.”

  “The control I exert is uneven at times. And they are simply fire elementals, charmed so that they can develop a shield to protect them.”

  “Protect them? The form is mostly made of earth or metal. It hurts them.”

  “Nephew, they are elementals. They don’t feel pain or passion as we do.”

  “Erin saw them kill her parents. They set her house afire.”

  Uncle Oshane leaned forward suddenly. “I doubt her parents are even truly dead, although she may believe so. The creatures are drawn more easily to flame, which might explain your prospector friend’s death, if there was a blackrock fire burning. If Erin saw her house afire, perhaps it was because the township was already burning.”

  “So you were there? And the hounds with you?”

  “I only brought them there to track the Dosmanos family. I hoped to speak to them, to explain why they should return what they held.”

  “What is it they held?”

  “A book dating from the time of Ancient, as you well know. It was written before the world turned, when elementals were only beginning to awaken. It was written in this world, and it contains wisdom and lore that we need. The Dosmanos line—”

  “Is part of ours,” Trevian said, “isn’t it? Aren’t they our cousins?”

  “Yes, but they are turvy, the lot of them. Madness bloomed in them. The thief who stole our book lived three centuries ago. He found a frontera and fled to their world. They have kept the book from us ever since.”

  “Why? It serves them no purpose, does it? You say their elementals have not awakened.”

  “So that those who need it cannot have it.”

  Trevian shifted back in his seat. “Uncle, the stories talk about several items related to the frontera, not just a book. There must have been some other reason for carrying those away as well. In the days after the world turned, many died at the hands of men and women, not just sickness and elementals. Maybe they meant to keep the objects out of the hands of those who would misuse them.”

  “Those who took them saw themselves as better than those they left behind.” He made a slashing gesture with his hand. “But enough about the past. She carries the book. It is ours by right, and by need.”

  “Not by need,” Trevian said. “We’re doing well.”

  “Doing well, you think, because you haven’t seen those other worlds, what they have. In her world, some make artwork of fresh water, lakes, and dancing fountains, while others walk five miles in a day to bring water to their families. They step over the bodies of the sick and dying on the way to their businesses. But they’ve harnessed elemental power so that they can speak to each other from thousands of
miles away and travel through the air in tubes of loomin.”

  “You’ve seen these things?”

  “I’ve seen them.”

  Trevian stared at him. It seemed that his grandfather’s madness had infected his uncle, but he thought of Erin’s smooth rectangle, the one that held an image and put out light. She talked of speaking and seeing people who were leagues and leagues away. He remembered how many of those objects he would find when he was prospecting, and other apparatuses that were mysteries like the flimsy greenish boards that were embossed with random metal designs, blobs and knobs of gold. He stretched, basking in the copper warmth of the room.

  “Did we have those things once?” he said. “Do you think we could fly through the air in charmed tubes of loomin?”

  His uncle sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I do, Nephew. And there is more. There is an elemental world where men and women walk free of pain and sickness. We can have that as well.”

  Erin sat up finally. No one was going to help her, but she still had the book. If she couldn’t escape, and it seemed pretty clear that she couldn’t, then she needed to use the book to stop Vianovelle and Trevian…or at least slow them down.

  She crawled along the wall to settle next to the water. There was more than enough light to read by. The book talked of creating the earth-fire creatures, the hounds, so if she read more closely, she might find a way to unmake them. She remembered reading something about that, but it had never been urgent before, and there had always been passages she’d skimmed because they made so little sense. But there might be a clue to what Vianovelle was doing, how he was using the fronteras.

  She closed her eyes for a minute and thought about Chip. He had been a warrior. She wished he was here to help her find a way to take the fight to them.

  Harness your anger, he might have said.

  She started from the back, where the language was most familiar—the oldest part of the book. This world, whatever it was, had been like hers until a few hundred years ago, even to the use of English. They spoke English now, here, it was just changed. She didn’t understand why, but it didn’t matter.

  The language she had always considered poetic and obscure made sense now that she knew a little about this world. The early parts of the book talked about energies, energies gaining self-awareness. The threat of the “world turning,” which her family always assumed just meant some cataclysmic political change, now took on a new significance. She paged backward and found a passage she remembered about the nature of elementals. She flipped to the beginning and read it closely. Earth could smother a fire elemental, as could water, and fire elementals avoided water elementals. Fire elementals were easily “contained” in a vessel, either some kind of quartz or aluminum, but they did need to feed, so air and fuel had to be provided. They were too unpredictable to be controlled for long, the treatise said, but formulae could be imprinted into gold that made them obedient.

  They disliked charmed copper, which was probably why the wards worked.

  Erin thought “imprinted” in this case didn’t mean carved. She thought they were already talking about magic. The collar was supposed to control elementals. Vianovelle must be using it to control the two hounds. To stop him, she would have to confront him and take it away, but she couldn’t think of a way to do that.

  Trevian had injured one of the hounds with a handful of dirt. If she could get close enough to pierce a carapace, she could poison them with earth, if they didn’t kill her the way they had her parents, first. She shivered.

  The forms, the forms they took from the objects surrounding them, it seemed like those hurt them. Vianovelle was forcing them to cover themselves in an element that caused them pain. It went against their nature. Could she use that in some way?

  A handful of sprites hovered over her, darting toward the book’s cover and away again. She looked up. A thin line of the creatures ran from the pool through the cavern. It was like a line of ants back home, not a mass migration but a steady narrow stream. She already knew they were drawn to water and copper. There must be one or both of those things ahead.

  She studied the line of sprites.

  Trevian let his head rest against the chair back. He studied the copper pattern on the ceiling, his eye following the snake-curves of braided cord. “How would we, Uncle? Free of pain? Of ill-health? And how would we fly through the air? Air elementals are elusive.”

  “It’s a mystery,” his uncle said, “but we know it can be done.”

  Three set of cords, the ones that ran from the top of the copper pole, ended at the lintel of the low door at the far end of the room. Trevian rolled his head and looked at the pole, which could almost have been grinning at him, nodding.

  “The book could tell us,” Uncle Oshane said.

  Trevian let his head loll back and forth, enjoying the pressure of the wood against his scalp. “The book would tell us nothing of that,” he said. “I…” A cold hole opened up in his gut. “By that I mean, I doubt any book would tell us of such things.”

  His uncle looked at him without speaking.

  Trevian made himself sit up. “Why do we want to fly through the air anyway? What purpose does it serve?”

  “To go thousands of leagues in a few hours? Think of the possibilities.”

  “Surely air elementals are not that strong. I’ve seen one carry off a person, but a whole cartload of people? That’s not possible.”

  Uncle Oshane moved his shoulders back in a shrug. “It is a wonder, a wonder we have been denied while others, those who torture and starve their own people, think nothing of the marvels they use.” He leaned forward suddenly, his hands clasped in front of him. “Our talk goes jolting down the wrong track. You are right. This is not about flying through the air. This is about worlds, worlds that are linked. Elemental worlds that should be united.”

  His uncle’s fervor made Trevian smile again. “United, how?”

  “One of our sister elemental worlds is much like ours, but they are more advanced in the healing arts than we, and they have allied themselves with an elemental race. We could learn from them, for they have vanquished pain and sickness. They could learn much from us, since they do not know how to charm metal. Then there is the world your woman comes from.”

  “She’s not my woman.”

  Uncle Oshane flipped his hands open and back. “A figure of speech. The fifth world I know little about.”

  “But you visited the first one, the one with the healers? How?”

  Uncle Oshane’s lids dropped over his eyes. “I have learned to navigate a frontera. It is perilous, but it can be survived.”

  “How? How did you do that? I did not think it was a Langtree skill.”

  “Didn’t you? Well, things can be learned, with great effort,” his uncle said.

  “Did you find a charm?” Trevian leaned forward now. He felt strong, confident, nearly giddy. “What did you find? Where? The same place you found the charm to control those fire elementals?”

  His uncle laughed and held up his hands. “Gently, gently, Nephew! I said I had a lot to tell you, and it isn’t told quickly. This is my life’s work. I have searched for the secrets of the frontera and ways to better our world, all the linked worlds. Everything I have I earned by my labor, my wits, my pain. It is much riskier than prospecting, but the rewards can be greater. Far greater. And I am eager to share them.” He shifted back his chair and stood up. “I see that you won’t trust me, Trevian, but I trust you. Wait for me.”

  Before Trevian could ask what he meant, his uncle left the room again. This time he followed the cords of copper to the back and, stooping, slipped through the rough-hewn door. Trevian closed his eyes, basking in the comfort of the copper and the charms. It was belonging. It was home in a way he’d never experienced.

  A niggle of guilt speared him, something about Erin. Something he had said…but the contentment washed it away. He got up and went over to the column again, letting his palms rest on it. Bluish-green shad
ows swirled beneath his eyelids, and his muscles felt warm and loose. He opened his eyes and looked up at the crown of cords. They looked like a juggler’s hat, and that thought itself made him laugh. And the laugh made him wonder where the cords went, beyond that door where Uncle Oshane had just vanished.

  The spearpoint of guilt nudged him harder. Why was his uncle so willing to trust him? He took his hands off the column. It radiated power, more than one man, even a copper-hunter, could produce. Something else was powering this. Was Uncle Oshane no different than Trevian’s father, imprisoning elementals to serve his needs? He took a step back.

  His uncle came back into the room, carrying a packet wrapped in tanned sheepskin. He set it on the table and folded back the sides, one after another. Trevian was drawn to the table as rectangles of loomin appeared. He recognized the curling designs at the corners.

  “You know these,” his uncle said.

  Trevian said nothing, just stepped closer and stood, keeping his hands at his sides. He eyed the stack of thin metal plates. There were six. His uncle had six pages from the book.

  “You chose not to tell me, but it’s clear you’ve seen the book, Trevian. That woman is dancing you like a string-puppet.”

  “Where did you get these?”

  “It took me twelve years to collect these. You see, I will trust you.”

  “And what are they, exactly? I just see sheets of loomin.”

  Uncle Oshane grinned. “I’d hate to play cards with you, Nephew. All right. They carry charms, important ones, and they tell us much about the elementals and the linked worlds. They speak of fronteras, including how to enter one and survive it.” He slipped one plate free of the stack. “This page tells of a gold broach that will compel an air elemental. I heard of this when I was barely more than a boy, and I searched and found it. I won it off a drunken gambler. Then I spent months learning the charm. When I sought to prospect with cousins here, the Dosmanos family, one of them stole it from me, hurled it into the lake.”