Iron Axe

by Steven Harper

  “We were not laughing at you,” the giant said. “We were laughing at your question. It’s a very simple one, but it would be easier to show you the answer than to tell you.”

  “Show me?” Hamzu asked suspiciously.

  “Yes.”

  Hamzu considered this. “No tricks? You won’t hurt me?”

  “No tricks, no harm. The Three swear on the roots of Ashkame. Come closer, child, and I will show you.”

  “I don’t think—” Aisa said.

  “They swore,” Hamzu replied, and sidled closer. The sister felt around until her fingers brushed his chest. She laid one huge, gnarled hand on his shoulder. Aisa tensed, though she had no idea what she might do if the sister tried to hurt him.

  “Here is your answer,” the sister said. Her other hand smacked the back of his head.

  Hamzu reeled and went to hands and knees on the cold stone floor. The third sister snatched the eye from Hamzu’s limp hand and popped it into one socket. Aisa sprinted over to him and tried to help him to his feet, but he was too heavy.

  “You said no tricks,” Aisa snapped. “You said no harm.”

  “Does it harm a newborn baby to have its bottom slapped?” the sister countered. “Look at the floor in front of you, boy.”

  Hamzu looked down. With shaking fingers, he picked up two splinters from the cave floor. One was stone; the other was wood.

  “Stane work with stone. Kin work with wood,” the giant said. “You are half-blood, so you were born with both kinds in each eye. You lost two splinters from one eye, but your mother lost one splinter from two, twice the trouble to her, my half-blood boy. She wore her splinters around her neck to remind her of a past, an innocence, she had lost. Did you never wonder why she stayed in a village where everyone hated her? Why she didn’t leave to seek a better future?”

  “She was a thrall,” Hamzu said, clutching the new splinters to his chest.

  “That didn’t prevent you from leaving.” The giant stared down at them with her gleaming green eye. Her single wrinkled ear twitched once. “Your mother knew no one anywhere would accept her as long as she had borne the bastard son of a troll, so she stayed where she was. She thought she could make her way up in the world by trading the truth for money, but people don’t like the truth. Not even the truth-teller does.”

  “Truth-teller?” Hamzu said.

  “The smallest tribe in the world.” The giant grinned with gray gums. “With nothing to cloud your vision, you will see the truth wherever you turn your true eye, boy, and that is a powerful thing. But those splinters did more than keep truth out, boy—they kept your truth in.”

  “I don’t understand.” Hamzu looked more confused than ever.

  “You will,” the giant said, “the next time someone asks you a direct question.”

  Now all three giants creaked to their feet like redwoods in a storm. Aisa backed up a fearful step.

  “I’m hungry,” said the first giant.

  “I’m thirsty,” said the second.

  “Run!” said the third.

  They ran. The Three came after them with thunderous footsteps. Aisa and Hamzu made it to the tunnel moments ahead of them.

  “Grandmother Bund!” shouted Aisa.

  An enormous hand came down the tunnel, pushing air ahead of it. Aisa felt its grasping breath on her back.

  “Grandmother Bund!” shouted Aisa a second time.

  Hamzu snatched her up and dove at the end of the tunnel. The hand reached toward them from behind as the rocky wall rushed at them from the front.

  “Grandmother Bund!” shouted Aisa a third time.

  They struck the wall. The universe Twisted both of them, and they were gone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Danr pushed himself upright. The cold stones spun beneath him, and he threw up. Bile burned his throat and tongue. He crouched a long moment on hands and knees, the steam from the vomit curling around his chest. Nasty stuff.

  “I hate Twisting,” he muttered. “I’d rather spend a week in a cougar’s den.” This had to be the world’s strangest day.

  “Where are we?” gasped Aisa. She was kneeling next to him. “This is not the place from which we started.”

  “No, honey. It’s where everyone ends.”

  The new voice yanked Danr to his feet. He found himself crouching between Aisa and the speaker, his hands partly curled into fists, and a part of him wondered how often this was going to happen. “Who are you?”

  They were in yet another cave, or so Danr thought at first. The floor was stone, but the walls were made of earth and the ceiling … the ceiling was a mass of tree roots thick as his waist and thin as his finger. This cave was much smaller, not even as large as the house of Orvandel the fletcher, and the winding tree roots gave the impression of a thatching. Soft beams of sunlight worked their way down through the roots, granting enough light to see by but not enough to hurt Danr’s eyes. It was all strangely cozy.

  A simple door made of stone, wood, and … glass? … took up part of one wall, and sitting on a rocking chair next to the door was a plump, motherly-looking woman in a red dress and a white shawl. Her graying black hair was pinned up in braids, but Danr couldn’t quite make out her face. Either the shadows got in the way or his eyes were blurry from the nausea, he wasn’t sure. Was she troll or human or … something else? A clicking sound came from her lap. She was knitting. On a table next to her stood two lit candles, one silver and one gold.

  “You know who I am, honey,” she said to Danr. “You just refuse to see the truth.”

  Danr backed up a step and bumped into Aisa. Roots brushed the top of his head, and the back of his skull ached where the giant woman had smacked him. His right eye stung. Clenched in his fist were the two needle-sized splinters, one wood and one stone, that she had knocked out of him. Everything was happening so fast he couldn’t keep up. His father was Kech the troll, he wasn’t the product of a rape as he’d thought all his life, he’d been conceived during an illicit love affair between his parents, and his mother’s splinters …

  He looked down at his own splinters, still in his hand, and blinked hard. His left eye, the one that had lost its splinters, came open first, and he saw the knitting woman through that eye only. His knees went weak. When one eye was still shut, he saw the woman … differently. He couldn’t quite explain it. She hadn’t changed in any way. But he saw more. The dress was red as blood. The knitting needles were of shiny human bone. Her knitting was a thousand, million, billion strands all inextricably woven together. The rocking chair was carved from a single piece of Ashkame itself. A chain, fine as a silken thread, wound nine times around her neck and vanished into the roots of the roof. This woman was Death.

  “Now you see,” said Death. “So like your mother.”

  Danr opened his other eye, and the woman returned to … not normal, but something like it. The truth stopped slapping him in the face. Still, Danr’s legs trembled and he started to kneel before her.

  “Don’t, if you please.” Death continued rocking and knitting. “Though if you’re very brave, you may kiss my cheek.”

  Danr wondered how brave he could be. Cautiously he leaned in and pecked her on the cheek. Her skin was cool and soft, and she smelled of dry daffodils.

  “What is happening?” Aisa demanded. “Who is this?”

  “This is Death,” Danr said, still a little bewildered.

  “Is it?” Aisa came around Danr for a better look. “Hmm! How strange. The Three frightened me. My master terrorized me. But Death … does not. Why is that?”

  “Most people don’t fear me, honey. They fear what comes just before me. And what comes after.”

  “What does come after?” Aisa asked.

  “At the moment, nothing.” Death paused in her knitting to pull at the thin thread around her neck. The roots overhead shuddered in sympathy, and Danr flinched. “Everyone enters that door, and sooner than they think. Even the Nine will troop through it eventually. On that day, I’ll set
down my needles, blow out these two candles, and follow them. But as long as the Stane’s chain binds me, nothing at all can enter that door, and that’s the truth.”

  “Who made the chain?” Aisa asked.

  “The dwarves, of course.” Death’s needles dipped in and out of her knitting. “They can make anything, if they have the right materials. It took the power of all the giants under the mountain to put it on me. More than a few vanished through that door during the fight. Vik was dancing in his drawers, I can tell you. He doesn’t get many giants on his side.”

  A dreadful thought struck Danr. “How did we get here? Are we going to … ?”

  Death laughed. “You haven’t been paying attention, honey. No one can really die right now. Their draugr hang about begging for release.”

  “Then how did we get here?” Aisa persisted.

  “I have some power still.” She leaned forward, though the thready chain brought her up short like a dog coming to the end of its leash. “Listen, dear, the Stane have the world’s biggest tiger by the tail, and that’s a problem. You help me, you help the world. You in?”

  “Where’s my mother?” Danr asked suddenly. “Is she on the other side of that door?”

  “Sweetie, everyone asks that question. Vesha, queen of the Stane, lost her daughter two years ago, and even she asked that question. I’ll give you the same answer I gave her: you’ll have to wait and see.”

  “How do we help you?” Aisa said.

  “Break this chain.”

  Without thinking, Danr reached out to grab the thread, intending to snap it. Death clicked a hand around his wrist. Her grip was cool and bony. “No. Hand me that rock, will you?”

  Mystified, Danr obeyed. The rock was the size of a small melon. Death held it over the thin chain and dropped it. With a soft feather of sound, the rock fell through the chain. It landed on the ground, split into two neat pieces. Danr sucked in his breath and stepped back.

  “Mustn’t touch,” Death agreed.

  “How long have you been chained like this?” Danr asked, brown eyes wide.

  “Not long.” The knitting needles clicked and clicked. “And yet long enough. It happened just a few days before those foolish Noss brothers attacked Kech. In your little village, only those two have died—or tried to. In the bigger worlds, hundreds and hundreds have tried to die. Time grows short, dear.”

  “How do we cut this chain, then?” Aisa said.

  “Didn’t you pay attention to the Three? Find the Iron Axe.”

  A thunderous boom crashed through the cave and made Danr’s bones throb. Aisa spun.

  “What—?” Danr asked.

  “Nearly time for you to go,” said Death. “Anytime you want to see me, I’ll be here. And not for the reason you’re thinking.”

  Danr’s gaze darted about the little cave, looking for the source of the noise. “But how do we find the Axe?”

  “And don’t answer us in nonsense and riddles,” Aisa put in. “It wastes everyone’s time.”

  Death said, “This chain clouds my vision, so I can’t say for sure.”

  “I knew it,” Aisa muttered wearily.

  “But the old stories told true when they said the Axe was split into three pieces—the head, the haft, and the power. The haft was last seen among the orcs in Xaron. The Fae keep the head in their court at Palana as a souvenir.”

  “No,” Aisa whispered.

  Another boom rumbled through the cave. It sounded like a giant’s footstep. Danr tried to look in all directions at once. “What is that?”

  “Bund is calling. I can’t keep you here forever.” Death’s needles clicked and clacked.

  “Where is the Axe’s power, then?” Danr demanded.

  Death shook her head. “I’m afraid I can’t help you, sweetie. Even I haven’t seen it in a thousand years. But I think if you put the first two pieces together, they’ll tell you where to find the third. And you’re under a time limit. The Axe can only be assembled when Urko, the split god, comes together. You’ll know by the two stars that represent him. They will come together in twenty-seven days—nine times three. How fitting is that?”

  “Twenty-seven days!” Danr gasped. “That’s no time at all! Not even a month!”

  “Then you’d better get moving.”

  To Danr’s shock, Aisa flung herself at Death’s feet. She begged in a tone that wrenched his heart, “Great lady, can you cure me?”

  Death paused in her knitting and put a gentle hand under her chin to raise it. “I can, dear child, but only once, and not in the way you want me to. I’m sorry.”

  Aisa swallowed hard, nodded, and rose.

  “How will we find you once we have this Axe?” Danr asked around the lump in his throat.

  “That won’t be a problem. I’d start looking for the haft in Xaron, if I were you. Remember—you have to find the pieces before the stars merge in twenty-seven days. And that’s twenty-seven days from the time you arrive back under the mountain. Time is a bit different here, you see. If you miss the moment, it’ll be another hundred years before another one comes along, so move quickly! And watch for the helpful traitor, dear.”

  “What does that mean?” Aisa said.

  “You’ll know when the time comes. Go!” A third boom, and a pattern of light and dark ribbons appeared against the wall opposite the door. Danr’s gorge rose as the pattern swallowed them.

  *

  “There you are, boy,” Bund grumped, and set her cane down. It made a very small boom that nonetheless echoed against the stones. “I’d begun to think you’d gotten lost, and believe me, you don’t want to get lost in a Twisting.”

  Danr dragged himself to his feet and helped Aisa up. This time he managed it without vomiting. Twenty-seven days. They had twenty-seven days to find the Iron Axe, or Death would be chained for another hundred years. How was he supposed to do that? Xaron was months away on foot and weeks away by horseback.

  Aisa, meanwhile, was staring at the ends of her long, ragged scarf. The trailing ends had been severed as if by a sharp knife. Thin tendrils of smoke curled from the wool. Danr blinked in dismay.

  “What happened?” Aisa whispered.

  “Hmm,” Bund said. “One of the little risks of Twisting, especially if the spell is interrupted—or you change direction unexpectedly.”

  Next to Bund was another trollwife, a younger one who stood taller and straighter. Her dark dress was cut from more luxurious fabric and her lower teeth gleamed in the mushroom light. “I’m not happy about this, Bund,” she said. “They could have been killed. And there’s that other matter.”

  “They needed to pay respects, and that’s the truth,” Bund replied blandly. “Even if they’ve been gone longer than I thought.”

  Danr’s head barely reached the other trollwife’s chest, though after the Three, she didn’t seem nearly so large.

  “Who—?” he began, but then he closed his right eye so he only saw through his left, the one that had lost the splinters. To his surprise, the trollwife … changed. She became regal, powerful, someone who owned everything around her, and who had a family connection to Bund—Danr could see they had the same eyes, the same jaw, the same hands and knees. But the trollwife also carried a heavy load, one that threatened to crush her. All these ideas slipped into place like grains of sand forming a picture. Danr had never met a queen before, but he did know he was supposed to bow, so he did.

  “Your Highness,” he said. Aisa, hearing the term, quickly curtseyed.

  The queen looked at him sharply. “How did you know who I was?”

  “It was obvious, lady,” he said, “once I looked. I also know you and Grandmother Bund are sisters.”

  Bund burst out laughing and thumped her stick on the stony floor. “Wonderful, boy! Welcome to the family of truth-tellers! We’re not popular, but we get the word out. This is my sister, Vesha. The queen.”

  “We spoke to Death,” Danr said quietly. “I don’t like what she told us.”

  Quee
n Vesha sighed, and Danr remembered her daughter had died. “I was afraid of that when I heard Bund had Twisted you away and you didn’t come back for all that time.”

  “All that time?” Aisa said. “What do you mean? It hasn’t even been an hour.”

  “Then you did see Death,” Bund said. “Time goes funny when the truly old ones play with it.”

  “How long have we been gone?” Danr demanded.

  “I’ve come down here to bang against the wall to try and bring you back every night, and I’ve done it … ” She paused to count on her gnarled fingers. “… fourteen times, so that would make it two weeks.”

  Danr staggered. Only a few days ago, he had been living his ordinary farmer’s life. Now he was trucking with trolls, dealing with Death, and mucking with magic. The power in this place staggered him.

  “I need to sit,” he muttered, and sank to the damp cavern floor.

  “Hungry?” Bund produced a melon-sized chunk of what smelled like smoked mushroom and a bottle of water. “Eat! You’re too thin for a troll.”

  “A word, sister, while the humans rest.” Vesha took Bund a ways up the cavern, where queen and trollwife conversed in low voices. Aisa sat beside Danr. He tore a chunk of the mushroom. It had the taste and consistency of smoky cheese. The water in the bottle was sweet and tasted of a spice Danr couldn’t name.

  Aisa accepted some of the food as well, and they chewed in companionable silence for a moment. Danr drank from the bottle again. How strange it was. For a long time, Aisa, with her exotic accent and the ragged scarves across her face, had been the strangest thing he’d known and it had been all he could do to say more than two sentences to her at once. Now, in comparison, she was the most normal. Was that the way it worked? Perhaps normal and abnormal, exotic and mundane only existed in relation to each other. Someone who saw one-eyed giants and tremendous trolls on a regular basis wouldn’t look twice at a girl who hid her face in scarves. He rubbed his chin. The people in Skyford and the village mistrusted Danr because he was part troll. But was that only because they never saw the Stane?