The Bone Doll's Twin

by Lynn Flewelling

  “I don’t know, exactly. When I first arrived tonight and it attacked I felt the circle of protection I’d cast bow like a tent wall in a high wind. Just now I thought something stronger was called for and attempted to push it from the room and seal the hall against it until morning.”

  “Did you make an error in the pattern?”

  “No, the spell was laid out properly. But it didn’t work, as you saw. As I said earlier, this spirit is unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. I wish I had more time to study it, but as things stand it would be too disruptive for the children. I don’t even dare go back in the house. I would like to see Tobin again before I go, though. Will you bring him to me in the morning? Alone, this time.”

  “Of course. But I wouldn’t expect it to be a long conversation if I were you. He’s not easily drawn.”

  Iya lay down on the pallet and chuckled. “I could see that much at a glance. By the Light, you do have your work cut out for you!”

  Chapter 25

  Ki was at the open window when Tobin woke the next morning. He stood with his chin on one hand, picking absently at a patch of lichen on the sill with long, restless fingers. He looked younger in daylight, and sad.

  “Do you miss your family?”

  Ki’s head jerked up. “You must be a wizard, too. You can read thoughts.” But he smiled as he said it. “It’s awful quiet here, isn’t it?”

  Tobin sat up and stretched. “Father’s men make a lot of noise when they’re here. But they’re all at Atyion now.”

  “I’ve been there.” Ki hitched himself up on the sill, bare legs dangling under the hem of his shirt. “At least I’ve ridden past it on the way to the city. Your castle is the biggest in Skala, outside of Ero. How many rooms does it have?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been there.” Seeing Ki’s eyebrows shoot up, he added, “I’ve never been anywhere except here and Alestun. I was born at the Palace but I don’t remember it.”

  “You don’t go visiting? We have family all over the place and go guest with them. If my uncle were the king, I’d want to go to Ero all the time. There’s music there, and dancing, and players in the street and—” He broke off. “Oh, because of the demon?”

  “I don’t know. Mama didn’t like to go anywhere. And Father says there’s plague in the cities.” It occurred to Tobin that Ki had survived his travels well enough. He shrugged. “I’ve always just been here.”

  Ki twisted around to look out the window. “Well, what do you do for fun? I bet you don’t have to mend walls or tend pigs!”

  Tobin grinned. “No, Father has tenants to do those things. I train with Tharin and go hunting in the forest. And I have a toy city my father made for me, but Arkoniel’s in that room now so I’ll have to show you later.”

  “All right then, let’s go hunting.” Ki slid off the sill and began looking under the bed for his clothes. “How many hounds do you have? I didn’t see any in the hall last night.”

  “Just a few old ones in the yard. But I don’t hunt with them; dogs don’t like me. But Tharin says I’m a fine archer. I’ll ask if he can take us hunting.”

  Brown eyes peered at him over the edge of the bed. “Take us? You mean you don’t go by yourself?”

  “I’m not to go away from the keep alone.”

  Ki disappeared again and Tobin heard a sigh. “All right then. It’s not too cold to swim, or we could fish. I saw a good spot at the bottom of the meadow.”

  “I’ve never fished,” Tobin admitted, feeling very awkward. “And I can’t swim.”

  Ki rose up and rested his elbows on the edge of the bed, regarding Tobin quizzically. “How old are you?”

  “I’ll be ten come the twentieth of Erasin.”

  “And they don’t let you have any fun on your own? Why not?”

  “I don’t know, I—”

  “You know what?”

  Tobin shook his head.

  “Before I left home, after Iya bought me off my father, my sister told me she’d heard of you.”

  Tobin’s heart turned to stone in his chest.

  “She said that some folk at court say you’re demon cursed, or simple in the head, and that that’s why you live clear out here instead of in Ero or Atyion. You know what I think?”

  This was it, then. Last night hadn’t meant a thing after all. It was going to be just the way he’d feared. Tobin kept his chin up and made himself look Ki in the eye. “No. What do you think?”

  “I think the folks who say that have shit between their ears. And I think the folks raising you are the ones simple in the head if they won’t let you outside on your own—not meaning any disrespect to Duke Rhius, mind you.” Ki gave him a teasing grin that swept away every shadow and fear. “And I think it’s well worth a beating to get out on a day as fair as this is making up to be.”

  “Do you, now?” asked Arkoniel, leaning against the door frame. Ki sat up, blushing guiltily, but the wizard laughed. “So do I, and I don’t think it has to come to beatings. I’ve been talking with Nari and Tharin. They agree that it’s time Prince Tobin began following proper boy’s pursuits. With you here to accompany him, I don’t think any reasonable request will be refused so long as you don’t stray too far.”

  Tobin stared at the man. He knew he ought to be grateful for this sudden change in the household rules, but he resented it coming from the wizard. Who was Arkoniel to make such decisions, as if he was the master of the house?

  “Before you go off on any adventures, though, my prince, Iya would like to speak with you,” Arkoniel told him. “She’s at the barracks. Ki, why don’t you go see what Cook has to eat? I’ll meet you in the hall, Tobin.”

  Tobin glared angrily at the door as it closed behind the wizard, then began yanking on his clothes. “Who do they think they are, these wizards, coming here and ordering me about?”

  “I don’t think he was doing that,” said Ki. “And don’t worry about Iya. She’s not so frightening as she seems.”

  Tobin shoved on his shoes. “I’m not scared of her.”

  Iya was enjoying her breakfast in a sunny corner of the barracks yard when Arkoniel arrived with Tobin.

  Daylight bore out the brief impression she’d formed the night before. The child was thin and rather pale from too much time spent indoors, but otherwise unmistakably male in appearance. No spell known to the Orëska could have done more than create a glamour around the girl, too easily detected or broken. Lhel’s cruel stitching had held perfectly. The magics sewn in with that bit of flesh had held sinew and flesh in solid form, real as the female frame that lay hidden beneath it.

  Sadly, Tobin hadn’t inherited his parents’ handsome looks except for his mother’s eyes and well-shaped mouth, and even these were spoiled at the moment by a sulky, guarded expression. Clearly, he wasn’t pleased to see her, but he made her a proper bow all the same. Too proper, really. As Arkoniel had observed, there was little that was childlike about this child.

  “Good morning, Prince Tobin. And how are you liking your new companion?”

  Tobin brightened a little at that. “I like him very much, Mistress Iya. Thank you for bringing him.”

  “I must leave today, but I wanted to speak with you before I go to visit your father.”

  “You’re going to see Father?” Yearning so plain it made her heart ache showed on the child’s face.

  “Yes, my prince. May I take him a greeting from you?”

  “Would you please ask him when he’s going to come home?”

  “I plan to speak to him about that. Now come and sit beside me so I may know you better.”

  For a moment she thought he would refuse, but manners won out. He settled on the stool she’d placed beside her chair, then looked curiously at her bandaged hand. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “Your demon was very angry with me last night. It burned my hand.”

  “Just as it made my horse throw me when I first arrived,” added Arkoniel.

  “It shouldn’t have done
that.” Tobin’s cheeks colored hotly as if he’d done these things himself.

  “Arkoniel, I’d like to speak privately with the prince. Would you excuse us?”

  “Of course.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, my dear,” Iya began after Arkoniel had gone, wondering how to draw out this strange child. When Tobin said nothing, she took his thin, callused hand between her own and looked deeply into his eyes. “You’ve had too many sorrows and frights already in your young life. I won’t tell you that there are no more to come, but I hope things will be easier for you for a time.”

  Still holding his hand, she asked him about simple things at first: his horse, his carvings, and his studies with Arkoniel and Tharin. She did not read his thoughts, simply let the impressions come to her through their clasped hands. Tobin answered each question she put to him, but volunteered nothing more.

  “You’ve been very frightened, haven’t you?” she ventured at last. “Of your mother and the demon?”

  Tobin shuffled his feet, drawing twin arcs in the dust with the toes of his shoes.

  “Do you miss your mother?”

  Tobin didn’t look up, but a jolt passed between them and she caught an image of Ariani as Tobin must have seen her that last terrible day, clear as if Iya was standing in the tower room with them. So it had been terror that had driven the princess up to that tower, rather than hatred of the child. But with this image came something else: a fleeting twinge of something else associated with the tower, something the child had pushed further from his mind than she’d imagined possible in one so young. She saw him glance up at it.

  “Why are you so frightened of it now?” she asked.

  Tobin pulled back and clasped his hands in his lap, not looking at her. “I—I’m not.”

  “You mustn’t lie to me, Tobin. You are mortally afraid of it.”

  Tobin sat mute as a turtle, but a torrent of emotion was building up behind those stubborn blue eyes. “Mama’s ghost is there,” he said at last, and again he looked strangely ashamed. “She’s still angry.”

  “I’m sorry she was so unhappy. Is there something more you’d like to tell me about her? You can, you know. I must seem like a stranger to you, but I have served your family for many years. I’ve known your father all of his life, and his mother and grandfather before him. I was a good friend to them. I want to be your friend, as well, and serve you as best I can. So does Arkoniel. Did he tell you that?”

  “Nari did,” Tobin mumbled.

  “It was his idea to come here and be your teacher, and to bring Ki here, too. He was worried that you were lonely without any friends of your own age. He also told me that you don’t seem to like him.”

  This earned her only a sidelong glance and more silence.

  “Did the demon tell you not to like him?”

  “It’s not a demon. It’s a ghost,” Tobin said softly. “And it doesn’t like you, either. That’s why it hurt you last night.”

  “I see.” She decided to gamble, knowing she had little to lose in the way of trust. “Did Lhel say that the ghost doesn’t like me?”

  Tobin shook his head, then caught himself and looked up at her with startled eyes. Here was one secret revealed.

  “Don’t be scared, Tobin. I know she’s here. So does Arkoniel. Did she speak to you about us?” “No.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  Tobin squirmed on the stool. “In the woods, after Mama died.”

  “You went into the forest alone?”

  He nodded. “Are you going to tell?”

  “Not if you don’t want me to, so long as you tell me the truth. Why did you go into the woods, Tobin? Did she call you?”

  “In dreams. I didn’t know it was her. I thought it was Mama. I had to go see, so I stole out one day. I got lost but she found me and helped me get back home.”

  “What else did she do?”

  “She let me hold a rabbit, and she told me how to call Brother.”

  “Brother?”

  Tobin sighed. “You promise you won’t tell?”

  “I’ll try not to, unless I think your father should know to keep you safe.”

  Tobin looked at her directly for the first time and the hint of a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “You could have lied, but you didn’t.”

  For an instant Iya felt like she’d been stripped naked. If she hadn’t already known otherwise, she’d have looked for magic in him. Trying to cover her surprise, she replied, “I’d rather we be honest with each other.”

  “Brother is what Lhel said to call the spirit. She said you can’t give the dead a name if they never had one before they died. Is that true?”

  “She knows about such things, so it must be true.”

  “Why didn’t Father or Nari tell me about him?”

  Iya shrugged. “What do you think of him, now that you know?”

  “He still does mean things, but I’m not as scared of him anymore.”

  “Why did Lhel teach you to call him?”

  He looked away, guarded again. “She said I’m to take care of him.”

  “You made him stop throwing things in the hall last night, didn’t you? Does he always do what you tell him to do?”

  “No. But I can keep him from hurting people.” He looked at her hand again. “Usually.”

  “That’s very good of you.” Another child might just as easily have done the opposite. She would speak to Arkoniel about this before she left. Outside the sheltered confines of the keep, it might occur to Tobin to use his power differently. “Will you show me what she taught you?”

  “You mean call Brother here?” Tobin looked less than enthusiastic at the prospect.

  “Yes. I’ll trust you to protect me.”

  Still Tobin hesitated.

  “Very well. What if I close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears while you do what she showed you? Just touch me on the knee when I can look.”

  “You promise not to look?”

  “By my hands and heart and eyes, I swear it. That’s the most solemn and binding oath a wizard can give.” With that, she squeezed her eyes shut and plugged her ears, then turned her back for good measure.

  She kept her promise not to look or listen. She didn’t have to, for she felt clearly enough the spell that rippled briefly in the air nearby. It was a summoning of some sort, but not any she recognized. The air around her went deathly cold. She felt a tap on her knee and opened her eyes to find two boys standing before her. Perhaps it was Tobin’s proximity, or the spell itself. Perhaps the unquiet spirit had simply chosen to show itself to her, but the one called Brother looked as solid as his twin, except that he cast no shadow. Even without this, however, there was no confusing the two.

  Brother was completely still, but Iya sensed a wild black rage in him. His mouth did not move, but she heard the words, You will not enter as clearly as if he’d put those pale lips to her ear. The hair rose on the back of her neck, for the words had the bitter tang of a curse.

  Then he was gone.

  “You see?” said Tobin. “Sometimes he just does what he wants to.”

  “You kept him from attacking me. He would have if you weren’t here. Thank you, my prince,” said Iya.

  Tobin managed a smile, but Iya felt more disturbed than ever. A young child, especially a child with no magic, should not have been able to do what she had just witnessed.

  She nearly laughed aloud when this bold little tamer of spirits replied, “You won’t tell, will you?”

  “I’ll make you a bargain. I won’t tell your father, or anyone else, if you let me tell Arkoniel, and if you promise to try to be his friend and go to him for help whenever you need it.” She hesitated, weighing her words. “You must tell him if Lhel asks anything of you that scares you, anything at all. Will you promise me that?”

  Tobin shrugged. “I’m not scared of her.”

  “Keesa don’t should be, Wizard,” a familiar voice said from the barracks doorway. “I help her.” Iya turned an
d found Lhel regarding her with a scornful smile. “I help you. Help that boy wizard of yours, too.” She raised her left hand and showed Iya the crescent moon tattooed there. “By Goddess, I swear you not make me go this time. When Brother go on, then I go. You leave me to work until time I can go. You got own work, Wizard, to help this child and the spirit.”

  “What are you looking at?” asked Tobin.

  Iya glanced at him, then back. Lhel was gone.

  “Nothing. A shadow,” Iya said, distracted. Even looking straight at the woman, she’d been unable to sense what manner of magic the witch had used. “Now, give me your hand, my prince, and promise me you’ll try to be Arkoniel’s friend. He’ll be very sad if you refuse.”

  “I’ll try,” Tobin muttered. Pulling his hand free, he walked away, but not before she’d seen the betrayed look in his eyes. He might not have seen Lhel, but he’d known she’d lied.

  Iya watched him out of sight, then sank her face into her good hand, knowing the witch had surprised her into a serious misstep, perhaps even intentionally.

  Like it or not, she had misjudged Lhel all those years ago and now their fates were twined together too tightly to risk any rash action.

  The deathly coldness washed over her again. Brother crouched at her feet now, staring at her with gloating, hate-filled eyes.

  You will not enter, he whispered again.

  “Enter where?” she demanded.

  But Brother kept his own secrets and took them with him when he vanished.

  Iya sat for some time, pondering the spirit’s ominous words.

  After Tobin left with the wizard, Ki found his way back down to the hall. He still couldn’t believe that this grand place was to be his home. Haunted it might be, but to live among royalty and wizards seemed well worth the risk in daylight.

  Young as he was, however, he’d seen enough of the world to know how strange a household this was. A prince belonged in the fine palaces Ki had glimpsed over the Palatine walls at Ero, not in a backwater keep like this one. Then again, Prince Tobin was damned strange himself. A pinched-up, dark little thing with eyes like an old man. Ki had been a little scared of him the first time he’d seen him. But after they’d gotten to laughing, Ki saw something else. Odd Tobin might be, but not like people said. Ki thought again of how the younger boy had stood up to the demon’s rage, not even twitching an eyelid, and his heart swelled with pride. What would a living enemy be to someone like that?