Bone War

by Steven Harper

  Oddly enough, the only way to get to the spit of land that jutted across the mouth of Bosha’s Bay and sheltered it from the ocean proper was through the Rookery, and since the temples of the warrior twins Belinna and Fell were on the tip of that spit of land, a wide road cut through the Rookery leading to it, and that road was reasonably safe, even after dark, in part because the priests of Belinna and Fell patrolled it. This was the road the trio walked now.

  They went in silence. The sluggish, shallow Tenner smelled of sea tide and bad algae and dead fish and garbage and the filth the tanners threw into it, for by law all the tanners and their smelly businesses were housed down here. The buildings varied wildly, from cut stone, to ragged wood, to piles of mud. The streets were a horror. Talfi didn’t see a well or a fountain anywhere, and he wondered where the people found water to drink. It was clear enough what they did with their waste.

  The inhabitants of the Rookery themselves stayed close to the shadows, as if they were afraid of getting caught in the early evening sunlight. Hollow, hopeless eyes stared from rags and patches as the trio passed, and misery hung in the stinking air like a dark mist.

  And yet there were bright spots. Taverns were open for business down here, just as they were near the market square. A number of houses along the patrolled road even seemed prosperous, though the women hanging out the windows made it obvious what kind of business they were conducting. One house was populated with men, and Talfi caught Ranadar’s eye at that. The elf simply shrugged. Small groups of well-dressed people also walked the patrolled road, or rode in carriages along it. Slumming, Talfi decided, or looking to visit one of the prosperous houses.

  The image of the carriage and the distorted version of himself flying in a rag-doll arc across the intersection nagged at Talfi, and he finally spoke to Other Talfi.

  “So you’re all basically unkillable,” he said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Other Talfi said, in his maddeningly familiar voice. “Though I’ve never watched one of us die.”

  “The seat of a flesh golem’s magic is his heart,” Ranadar said. “If you cut it out, he would probably die. The same would be true if you cut off his head.”

  Talfi snorted. “Isn’t that true for everyone?”

  “I suppose it is,” Ranadar said with a little laugh.

  “Maybe we should test it,” Talfi said, giving Other Talfi a grim look.

  “All right!” Other Talfi stopped and crossed his arms, forcing Talfi and Ranadar to halt as well. “Maybe we should have this out right here.”

  “Have what out?” Talfi crossed his own arms.

  “Why you hate me so much,” Other Talfi said.

  “I don’t hate you,” Talfi objected.

  “Sure you do. And I know why. You’re afraid of me because you think I love Ranadar as much as you do.”

  Talfi’s face grew hot. “That’s a lie!”

  “I do love him, though,” Other Talfi said softly. He dropped his arms. “I remember it. I remember loving him.”

  “Take it back.” Talfi cocked a fist. “I’ll beat your damn face in, even if it looks like mine!”

  Ranadar stepped between them, creating a strange mirror image—an elf between two identical men, while pedestrians paused to stare. “We do not need an argument here.”

  “You can’t love him,” Talfi almost shouted. “You’re not even alive!”

  “I remember,” Other Talfi repeated, and shifted his focus to Ranadar. “I’ve slept with you and kissed you and made love with you a hundred times. I remember walking through forests in Alfhame with you and sneaking away from your parents with you. It happened.” Tears stood in his blue eyes. “I missed you every second we were apart, and then when I saw you here in Balsia, I thought we could—we could—”

  “But you also knew that you were just a copy of my Talashka,” Ranadar said slowly.

  “A copy of a memory is still a memory. A copy of a feeling is still a feeling.” He reached for Ranadar’s cheek. Talfi’s heart twisted inside him.

  Ranadar brushed Other Talfi’s hand away. “It is hard to hear blunt words, but I have no feelings for you one way or the other, and I will not give up what I have with the real Talfi to explore anything with you—or any of the other flesh golems, come to that.”

  Talfi gave a heavy internal sigh and his muscles unwound like great springs. He’d been tense but hadn’t realized how tense until Ranadar spoke those words.

  “The real Talfi,” Other Talfi murmured. “Yes. Cut out my heart.”

  “Drama suits you badly,” Ranadar said.

  Other Talfi looked up sharply, then flashed a quicksilver grin. For a tiny second, Talfi saw how good-looking they—he and Other Talfi—were, and it was disconcerting. “Worth a try,” Other Talfi said.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Startled, the trio looked up. Two men on horseback had approached, both of them in the red and gold livery that proclaimed them members of the prince’s guard. Behind them came a clay golem, also in livery. Stane runes crawled over its exposed “skin.” The streets had become noticeably emptier. Dogs barked some distance away.

  “We’re just having a conversation,” Talfi said, a little bewildered. “Is something wrong?”

  One of the guards leaned down, apparently to get a better look at Talfi’s face. His horse danced a bit. “The prince is looking for your type.”

  Type. A small icicle of fear slipped through Talfi’s heart, and a word—regi—flicked through his head. The response was automatic. In some places, men who loved other men were persecuted, even executed. Talfi pulled himself together. Balsia was not one of those places. Regi were not particularly well liked here, but neither were they rounded up and arrested. Or so Talfi told himself.

  “What’s my type?” he asked, keeping his voice steady.

  The guard ticked features off with his fingers. “Brown hair with a curl, blue eyes, looks about seventeen, boy’s build, favors red clothes. And”—he gestured at Other Talfi—“there’s more’n one of you.”

  “Oh,” Talfi said. “That. We’re … brothers.”

  “Not how we hear it.” The guard, an able-bodied man with dark hair and thick arms, drew a truncheon and dismounted while his companion remained on the horse. The golem came forward. It was unarmed, but Talfi knew from experience that it would be stronger and faster than it looked.

  “What is this about, sir?” Ranadar asked. His hood was still up.

  With the tip of his truncheon, the guard lifted Talfi’s chin in a way Talfi disliked very much. “We’re getting a lot of reports about trouble being caused by someone of your description.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Other Talfi asked quietly, though Talfi heard the tension, and he wondered if the three of them could take on two guardsmen and a golem in a fight.

  “Disturbing the peace, mostly,” said the guard. “Though more’n one’ve said something about stealing food. And we’re hearing about a whole lot of so-called brothers. After that incident with the toads, the prince is starting to wonder what’s going on. Shape mages, maybe, who’ve learned to look like other people. We’re looking hard at people like you, and right now I’m thinking you both need some up-close looking.”

  The guard intended to take him—them—in. And Talfi had the feeling that any protestations that he knew the prince would fall on deaf ears. Talfi glanced about, wondering if they should run for it. The guard noticed and drew back the truncheon. The other guard’s horse danced now, and the man riding it had to work to calm it.

  “What’s wrong with these damn horses today?” he muttered.

  “I wouldn’t be trying to go anywhere,” said the guard with the truncheon. “In fact, I’m thinking we should haul you down to the keep for some questions.”

  “Good sir.” Ranadar pushed back his hood, revealing his ears and Fae features. “I have business, and you are interrupting it.”

  The guards, one afoot and one mounted, blinked at him. The guard with the tr
uncheon said, “What’s an elf doing in the Rookery, then?”

  “My business,” Ranadar said coolly. “These young men belong to me. We will be on our way.”

  “Slavery’s illegal in Balsia these days,” the guard said. “You got no authority. We’ll be bringing you in, too. For questioning. Golem!”

  “Sir?” said the golem.

  “Give me the iron shackles. For the Fae.”

  Ranadar pursed his lips. “Talfi, shake your sack and set it down by that wall, would you? And then I will show this good guardsman exactly why he should let us go about our business.”

  “Shake and—?” Talfi began.

  “Just do it,” Other Talfi said.

  Talfi shook the sack hard. The objects inside clanked and rattled even as the golem got the shackles from the first guard’s horse. Both horses tried to rear, and only quick work from the guards kept them steady. Talfi stepped over to the wall to set the sack down. Both guards were now watching him and their horses, and not Ranadar.

  “Here, now!” said the guard on the ground to Talfi. “Don’t you be going anywhere!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Talfi saw Ranadar’s hands and lips moving, and he understood what was happening. The air near Talfi took on a soft shimmer.

  “Look, this is just a misunderstanding,” Talfi said loudly. He pointed. “What you’re looking for is in that sack.”

  The guards turned to look at it.

  “Now!” Ranadar said.

  Talfi dove into the shimmer. So did Other Talfi. The Twist snapped around him, pulled him in an infinite number of directions, then snapped him back together. He stumbled out into the street, a different one. Nausea rocked his stomach, but he held himself together. They must not have gone very far.

  Other Talfi also appeared on the street. A split second later, Ranadar popped into being, and the Twist snapped shut.

  “Oi!” the guard shouted, and his voice came from only one street over. “Find them!”

  Hoofbeats and some shouting trailed off, then silence. Ranadar looked a little pale.

  “Are you all right?” Other Talfi asked before Talfi himself could.

  “I had to Twist us quickly, and it was a drain,” Ranadar said. “Just let me rest a moment until my head stops hurting from the clang of all that iron.”

  “Why did you tell the First to shake the sack and put it down?” Other Talfi said. “It has everything in it.”

  “The sack has iron in it,” Talfi said. “Ran couldn’t Twist it. The shaking was to upset the horses and distract the guards. Run back and get it. Quick—before the guards come back.”

  Other Talfi dashed off while Talfi helped Ranadar to a sitting position on the noisome street. “You were brilliant,” he said.

  “As were you,” Ranadar replied with a wan smile. “I cannot think of anyone else I would rather trick guards with.”

  “You know there’s another meaning to that sentence.”

  Ranadar pretended to hit him, and Talfi pretended to shy away. “I love you forever, you know,” Talfi said.

  “I know,” Ranadar said. “And coming from people who truck with immortals, that is a promise indeed.”

  Talfi was leaning down to kiss him when Other Talfi returned with the sack. “I got away pretty easy,” he said. “But we’re all good runners. Always have been.”

  The words ruined the moment, and Talfi’s ire rose. “Don’t say that,” he snapped, and helped Ranadar to his feet. “I’m not we.”

  Other Talfi slung the sack over his shoulder. “Look, if you’re going to take everything I say to mean—”

  “Perhaps we should just keep moving,” Ranadar interrupted.

  A pair of cats raced out of an alley with their tails at full brush, and the distant dogs set up their barking again until someone yelled at them to stop. The trio moved down the street in silence. After a while, Other Talfi said, “I don’t like this one bit.”

  “Besides the obvious,” Ranadar sighed, “what do you not like?”

  “Don’t you feel it? Something in the city is … off.”

  “Off.” Ranadar stopped again, annoying passersby who were forced to stream around them. “What do you mean off?”

  “The air,” Other Talfi said, looking nervous now. “The water. The sky. I don’t know. Off.”

  Talfi cocked his head, listening in spite of himself. The city seemed normal to him. The heavy smells of waste and rotting food and horsehair and unwashed skin, the press of moving people in motion like dirty ocean waves washing through the streets, the shouts and yells and screams and hollers, the clang of iron tools that made Ranadar wince. All of it was …

  Wrong.

  “I do not see what you—” Ranadar began.

  “No,” Talfi said. “He’s right. I don’t want to say it, but he is. Something’s off. I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Then how can we know what it is?” Ranadar asked.

  Other Talfi cocked his head. “It’s … what is it?”

  Talfi thought a moment, then snapped his fingers. “The animals! Do you hear?”

  All three of them remained where they were and listened. The sounds of the city rose and fell in the normal—no, not quite normal—cacophony. Dogs barked, but with a frantic note. Alley cats yowled in a panic. A flock of pigeons circled the sky, unwilling to set down and rest. A goose girl’s flock honked and flapped its wings restlessly while a shepherd fought to keep his bleating sheep under control.

  “The animals are unhappy,” Ranadar said after a moment.

  “Exactly,” Talfi said. “Even the guard’s horses were restless. Did you notice?”

  “Hmm,” said Ranadar.

  “What does it mean?” Other Talfi asked. “You’re an elf. You’re supposed to know this stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Talfi said. “You ran in the wilderness for almost two hundred years after we—” He caught himself. “I died.” He hurried on, though Other Talfi gave him an interested look. “What was the phrase you used? Many rushes?”

  “Mal rishal,” Ranadar corrected. “An elf who lives apart from the others. Animals become restless when they are fearful or unhappy, but if that is the case, what could frighten every animal in the city at the same time?”

  Talfi looked hard at Other Talfi. Other Talfi edged away from him. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “That we know of,” Talfi said grimly. They reached the building he had in mind, an unprepossessing, two-story building with a lower story of stone and a second story of battered and blackened wattle-and-daub. The roof was long gone, as was the front door.

  “What happened to this place?” Other Talfi asked.

  You don’t remember? Talfi almost said, then swallowed the words. “It used to be a brewer’s place, but it burned during the Blood Storm and the owner left town, so it’s been empty ever since. We might have to chase out some squatters, but we can use it and no one will ask questions.”

  “Let’s go,” Other Talfi said.

  “First,” Ranadar said, “we must decide what to do about him.” He cocked a graceful thumb over his shoulder. Talfi, who was reaching for the tavern door, glanced around. Behind them on the muddy street came a twisted figure, his face hidden under a ragged red cloak of the color Talfi favored. Talfi’s fingers chilled. It was the second man from the alley all those days ago, the one who had run away.

  “He’s been following us for a while,” Ranadar said as a cart laden with empty barrels rumbled by, spraying mud. “There is another one of him two streets over, and I think more are coming.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Talfi hissed.

  “I did not wish to alarm you.”

  “I’m alarmed,” Talfi said. “Highly alarmed.”

  “He won’t hurt you,” Other Talfi said. “We won’t hurt you. You’re the First.”

  Talfi set his mouth. “I’m not worried he’ll hurt me. I’m worried … I’m worried …”

  “What?” Other Talfi said.

  “I’m
just worried.” Talfi stormed inside the building. He couldn’t seem to sort this out, and the world wasn’t giving him the chance to do it. How many other versions of him had Gwylph created? Were they all here in Balsia? How was she doing it? Why was she doing it? And why him? The questions swirled inside him like lava and ice, and he couldn’t seem to keep his bearings. Now he was also learning that Other Talfi—and, by extension, the other Other Talfis—had memories of his own past that Talfi himself did not. Even worse, some of those memories involved Ranadar. It was like discovering his greatest treasure had been stolen by a hundred thieves before he had even known he’d owned it. Worse was the thought that the memories he had lost had been somehow locked inside him all this time, then snatched away and given to these … golems of himself. If only he could have figured out how to unlock the memories, he would have known, really known, who he was, instead of having the snatches and patchworks of himself.

  Perhaps the memories were still there, locked inside him even now. Or perhaps they had been removed and handed to the other Talfis. But how and why? The helplessness and anger and fear nipped and sliced at him with a thousand knives, and he had no idea how to handle any of it.

  Ranadar touched his arm in the doorway. “I know, Talashka.”

  Talfi paused. “Know what?”

  “I know you are unhappy and upset. Over the flesh golems and what they represent. Over the memories they have … stolen from you.”

  “Hey!” said Other Talfi. “I didn’t—”

  “Are you reading my mind now?” Talfi almost snarled.