by Wen Spencer
“You would not have this problem if you took another Hand.”
“And have five more mouths to feed.”
“The clan would more than double your support.”
“Things are not that simple. This is why you fail so badly at politics.” Mace gave a slight wave and strolled away.
Forge frowned after him.
“He cannot take what hasn’t been offered,” Forge’s First, Dark Scythe, said.
* * *
“If you change your mind,” the note read in messy English, followed by a phone number and then lots of x’s and o’s. Oilcan frowned at the scrap of paper tucked into his glove box. Who was this from? The phone number had an area code, so it wasn’t a Pittsburgh number.
He rooted a little more until he came up with a fresh pad of paper and a pen and headed back into Sacred Heart, trying not to think about the note. Undoubtedly it was from a female post-doc that he’d met at one of Lain’s Startup Cookouts. It really didn’t matter which one—they all ended messy.
Ryan MacDonald was the last woman he had dated. She had been delightfully laid-back. Toward the end of her thirty-day stay on Elfhome, though, they slipped into the familiar pattern of all his relationships. The conversations that danced around the depth of his feelings. The tentative testing of his commitment to Elfhome. Ryan at least didn’t push for him to move to Earth; instead she hinted that she could return to Elfhome for a permanent position.
It ended like all the others. Her in tears and the familiar refrain “If you would only say that you loved me.”
Any other Shutdown, he would have locked himself away at his barn and drunk himself into a stupor. On the off chance that Tinker would return from Aum Renau, though, he got permission to ride out Shutdown at the enclaves and thus was there to welcome her home.
He flipped open the pad and tried to distract himself by scribbling down the start of a new to-do list. (Tinker teased him about using paper, but sometimes writing something down and then burning the paper was the only way to deal with things.) Roach had hauled away the last dumpster filled with rubble from the restroom demolition. He needed to take down the three-story chute, carefully, in case he needed it for a second story remodel of the bathrooms. The cement board was up and the seams sealed. All that was left was the tiling.
His footsteps echoed in the front foyer, reminding him that he was alone for the first time since he found Merry. Not completely alone. Blue Sky was treating the kids to DVDs. Oilcan could hear the faint strains of music from somewhere upstairs, and buttered popcorn perfumed the air. Iron Mace was working in his rooms. His Hand was using the gym as a training hall. Forge was consulting with Prince True Flame on defenses out by the faire grounds.
But Thorne Scratch wasn’t quietly shadowing Oilcan for the first time in days. Iron Mace had called her aside while Roach was loading up the dumpster. She had left Sacred Heart to do Iron Mace’s bidding—making Oilcan wonder if they had quietly come to an arrangement already.
The mystery note reminded him that this time he was the one that was leaving “in just a few decades.” He was the one wondering how Thorne Scratch felt. He was the one that desperately wanted to ask the measure of her feelings. And it was probably going to be the same messy end.
He crumpled up the note and shoved it into his pocket to burn later.
Blue Sky and Baby Duck came charging down the stairs, Repeat the elfhound puppy half tumbling on their heels. “Out of popcorn!” Blue yelled as they ran past. “And Rustle lost his belt buckle!”
Oilcan sighed. “How?”
“I don’t know!” Blue shouted back as all three vanished into the dining room.
Oilcan shook his head. Rustle was a black hole for personal items. He had lost everything from the irreplaceable iPod to three left shoes. Oilcan added “Rustle: belt buckle” to his to-do list and continued up the stairs.
He had used up the last of his money to buy tile for the bathing room. Wollerton’s didn’t have enough of the gorgeous blue glass tile to cover the entire room. He had to buy other tiles to have enough square footage. Before he could start laying the tile, he needed to decide on a design. The project should relax him, as art was always soothing. It let him take a big hunk of chaos and reduce it down to something neat and orderly.
It was a brainless choice for the swimming pool-like tub. The elves liked to add salt and minerals to the heated water. Since the cloudy water would obscure most of the inner walls, the tub itself could be of plain white tiles.
He switched to his datapad to do calculations on how much square footage the glass tile would cover. He sang to himself as he sketched out a 3-D model of the room and overlaid a grid to show coverage. Once he got the room tiled, the acoustics were going to be amazing.
His brain went back to Rustle. The musician’s arm was still not healing readily. True, Tinker’s arm wasn’t as badly broken, but she had regained limited use of hers in two days of the same aggressive healing spells. Nor was Rustle sleeping as much as Tinker did while healing. Maybe he should take Rustle back to the hospice. Perhaps something about the kids’ weird genetic makeup meant that the healing spells didn’t work the same on them. What Pandora’s box did Tinker open when she picked the chest’s lock?
“Knock, knock, pick the lock,” he sang. “Open the box, take the spell from uncle’s room, run away, save the day . . .”
Oilcan trailed off as he realized the song wasn’t some innocent children’s song, but a literal history of his family.
Strong arms caught hold of him, and he was jerked off the ground.
“So he did leave a record, after all,” Iron Mace growled into Oilcan’s ear. “I was afraid he would. It was obvious he must have, the way all his children turned against their clan. No, no, no.” Mace pressed something soft against Oilcan’s face to muffle his shouts. “We don’t want to get the doubles involved in this. Too many innocents have suffered already.”
Oilcan stopped shouting as he realized only the kids were on the third floor. Mace’s Hand was down on the first floor, and Forge was across the street. Even Thorne was out—carefully sent away. He focused on trying to get free, but Mace had him tight.
“Just relax, let the saijin do its work.” Mace carried him toward the bank of windows standing open to let out the construction dust.
Oilcan buckled in Mace’s hold even as the edges of his vision went shimmering white with the drug.
“Go to sleep,” Iron Mace growled. “That way you won’t feel anything.”
Oilcan struggled to keep his eyes open. He couldn’t move. He felt like he was sinking into warm, bright quicksand. Even Oilcan’s fear was slow, seeping through him. Was this how Amaranth really died? Drugged to helplessness and then murdered in a way to look like she had killed herself? Had Mace dropped her from a window, too?
Forge’s voice came thundering from a great distance. “What are you doing? Put him down! Get away from him!”
The world was washed in brightness as Mace laid him on the floor, the flower kissing his face. Oilcan struggled to roll his head, but Mace was holding him still. Mace hovered above, a darkness in the shimmering light. “You didn’t do anything to save my sister. I told you that she was driving herself insane with all that digging through the moors for his body. I told you that you had to take her away from that place, take her somewhere not haunted by his ghost. You didn’t listen. You did nothing, and she slipped through your fingers.”
Forge’s voice lost its thunder. “I didn’t think she would—I didn’t think—”
Oilcan tried to shout his fear, and it came out a moan. No, no, don’t listen to him!
“If you do nothing, we’re going to lose all we have left of her!” Iron Mace raged, sounding like a grief-stricken older brother—but then, he’d had centuries to perfect the act. “The Wind Clan already took one of our little ones. She’s gone to us. Are you going to let him slip through your fingers, too?”
“I’ve done what I can.” Forge finally eclipsed Oil
can’s view of the ceiling. He gazed down at Oilcan with eyes dark and luminous with tears. “You can’t—”
“Save him!” Mace shouted. “Or are you going to let him die, too?”
“You can’t just drug him and change him.” Forge reached for the flower.
Iron Mace caught Forge’s hand. “He’s twenty-two years old, Forge. Twenty-two! What does he know about life and death? He’s still a baby. The law says a parent can act for the good of their child.”
Oilcan’s eyes closed against his will, and he sank down into the light.
“He—he’s not a baby.” Forge’s voice was full of despair. “He’s good and kind and patient. . . .”
The light was dimming, fading to black. Tooloo had warned Oilcan to be careful, that the Stone Clan would twist him around and then murder him in his sleep.
“And he’ll be gone soon if we don’t save him,” Mace thundered in the darkness. “Don’t fail him like you failed Amaranth.”
The last thing Oilcan heard was Forge groan and whisper softly, “Oh, child, forgive me, but he’s right.”
And then Oilcan was lost in the darkness.
38: UNCLEAN BLOOD
Lemonseed was Windwolf’s major domo. She was patient and unmovable as a mountain. She looked no older than Lain, her face only lightly touched by time. Small wrinkles gathered at the corners of her Lady Madonna smile. She had two locks of pure white hair that she wove like silk ribbons through her Wind Clan glossy black hair. She was, however, the oldest member of Windwolf’s household and well over nine thousand years old. She had been born when humans were just wrapping their brains around the idea of keeping animals as pets and planting seeds into the ground to create farms. She had lived through thousands of years of Skin Clan rule before the clans won their freedom.
Most importantly, she was Windwolf’s Beholden. She could be trusted not to talk to the Wyverns about anything damning Tinker let slip.
They cornered her in the kitchen garden among the laundered sheets hung out to dry on strands of steel-spinner silk. The walls of damp white cotton gave them privacy without making it obvious that they were trying to hide.
“What do you know about the naelinsanota?” Tinker asked.
“Oh, that is not a term I’ve heard for nae hou,” Lemonseed said. “It is not something I would tell you lightly. Do you really need to know?”
Tinker nodded. “Please. Everything that you can tell me.”
Lemonseed laughed and smiled and cupped Tinker’s face in her hands. “Oh, sweetness, it would take years to tell you all that I know.” A measure of her Hand’s trust of the old female, neither Pony or Stormsong moved as Lemonseed touched her. “Judging on the last few months, we do not have years for you to hear it all.”
“Unfortunately, no. I’m not sure if I even have days or hours.”
“Ah, the unclean ones?” Lemonseed tilted her head to consider the clouds passing over their narrow cloth hallway. “I was born slave to King Boar Bristle of the Eastern Steppes. He had been born the second son of King War Axe, but he had murdered his father and older brother for his title and was quite determined not to spawn any children that could wrestle away his power. We lived in a great jewellike palace built over a lake that was stocked with the most heavenly smelling water lilies, and glow fish so beautiful it would take your breath away. And yet there wasn’t a moment of the day where you were totally safe. To the king, we were cattle, there to be used and slaughtered. To his favorites, he gave free rein to take their pleasures however they wished. Half of the people that lived in the palace were loyal to the Skin Clan, but the rest of us were secretly Wind Clan. It was my mother who was wet nurse to Quick Blade, Windwolf’s great-grandfather, the king’s bastard who he had ordered drowned in the lake at birth. My older half-brother was drowned in his stead.”
Tinker wondered when Lemonseed would get to her point; and the tengu thought that dragons were long-winded. “So, the unclean ones?”
“That was how it was,” Lemonseed said. “The Skin Clan had great palaces scattered across the known world where we lived like frightened mice as they moved like gods among us, taking pleasure and killing where they desired. But every century, we were growing stronger and bolder. The Soulless One lived on the Inner Sea, half a world away, where Winter Court lies now.”
Obviously there was a huge hole in Tinker’s knowledge, as Lemonseed had said the name as if Tinker should recognize the person. “Who?”
“The emperor of the Skin Clan, Heaven’s Blessing. We called him the Soulless One because he was an albino.”
“Albinos are born without a soul.” Pony sounded like he believed it totally.
“Fortunately, albinos are almost unheard of among elves,” Stormsong added. “Mostly because it was ruthlessly eliminated from the main breed stock shortly after Heaven’s Blessing was born.”
“He was brilliant and ruthless. He sensed the coming years of resistance where we would fight open battles against our masters. The greatest at spell-working, he chose to create his ultimate weapons. Of that, we of the Wind Clan only know the rumors.”
In other words—much fewer words: I wasn’t there, I’m not sure how much of this is true. The reason for the disclaimer became obvious with Lemonseed’s next sentence.
“It is said,” Lemonseed whispered, “that the emperor captured a god. He distilled down its essence and used it to create new castes. The first that he made were the naelinsanota. They were flawed because of his impatience. The second he made were the intanyai seyosa. They looked upon their maker and saw his wickedness. They saw too that he was about to create his own downfall, so they kept their silence. It was with the god’s holy perfection that he made the sekasha.”
Providence had claimed that the Skin Clan had used a dragon to create the sekasha. The children were descended from “brothers” of the sekasha? If the caste was considered flawed, why did the Skin Clan want the children? What abilities had the Emperor been trying to breed into the naelinsanota?
“Why were they considered unclean while the sekasha are holy?” Tinker asked.
“Because of their mothers.” Lemonseed blushed and looked down at the ground. “The Soulless One had developed a spell in which a child would be produced within a female’s womb without her having sex. It has never been clear if the resulting child was the mother’s flesh and blood, or if she was merely a vessel for another’s child. He tested it first using wargs—he was trying to make a creature strictly for war.” Lemonseed waved her hands as she floundered. “The offspring looked like elves. Many did not survive their births. They were eaten by their beast mothers.”
“Gods,” Tinker breathed.
“When he saw he could make elves with the god’s essence, he used filintau-caste to bear the children.”
The filintau were “the clean folk.” The caste had been created to be a pure breeding stock, free of defects. Apparently the mother’s “purity” was enough to affect how the other elves saw the offspring.
Still, how did you even take something like Impatience, render it down, and produce an elf born to a beast? Tinker couldn’t imagine the level of knowledge on gene manipulation that the Skin Clan had to possess. Even the horrific twisting of the oni didn’t compare.
Her new cell phone started to play “Sky Diving”—Blue Sky’s ringtone.
“What is it, Blue?” Tinker answered her phone.
“Everyone is gone, and someone’s here.” Blue’s voice was thin with fear. “I think it’s oni.”
“What? Where are you?”
“Sacred Heart. Someone just broke down the door.”
“Get to the safe room!”
“We can’t! They’re downstairs and we’re upstairs.”
She was running toward the door, aware that warriors were sweeping up behind her. Her mind was racing through the school’s layout. The bedroom doors had frosted glass inset into wooden frames. Only the restrooms had solid doors. “Go to one of the restrooms and barricade yourself in.”
“The toilets or the bathing room?”
It doesn’t matter, she almost wailed and then realized it did. “The bathing room!”
Judging by the shouts and screams and sudden gunfire, Blue Sky had the other kids with him and a gun. Where was Oilcan? Where were Forge and his Hands? There should be a horde of sekasha between the kids and the oni!
There was an awful possibility that the oni didn’t need or want the children alive. Maybe body parts were sufficient, or maybe they would rather that the kids were dead than have Tinker able to discover what was different about them.
“Tinker!” Blue cried over the phone. “They’re breaking down the door!”
“The chute! Come down the chute!”
She waved Pony to head into the school as she detoured to the construction chute. The boxed-in slide slanted down the side of the building, leading from the third-story bathroom to where the dumpster had been parked. What were the numbers of “soft?” She dropped her phone and cast the spell, praying she remembered the fingering chart correctly.
A moment later Baby Duck came shrieking down the slide and landed in soft, yielding nothingness.
“No, no!” Tinker used her foot to block the screaming little female’s attempt to climb her. “I’ve got to catch the others. Someone get her!”
One of the laedin caught hold of Baby Duck and was, in turn, frantically scaled until the little female was latched tight around the warrior’s neck.
Tinker tried to ignore the sudden outbreak of gunfire as Pony led the elves into the school house.
Rustle slid down the chute next, quiet and white. He stumbled to his feet and turned to catch hold of Merry as she slid down to safety. They clung to each other.
Tinker wanted Oilcan’s kids safe and sound, but it was Blue Sky she desperately wanted on the ground beside her. The little idiot would probably wait until last—his father’s genes wouldn’t let him go any earlier. The sound of open warfare came from the school. Cattail appeared, then Barley, but no baby sekasha. “Blue!” There was an explosion above. “Blue!”
