Ranadar shook his head. “I told you I do not have the power for that. But I know you better than I know anyone, and it hurts me to see you in fear and pain. We will learn what is happening and we will handle it. Remember, we speak with Death, and we changed the world. We can handle my mother and a few golems.”
Talfi barked a short laugh. “I don’t know who’s worse—Death or your mother. But thanks. Let’s go in.”
“I didn’t steal your memories,” Other Talfi said stubbornly.
“What shall we do about him?” Ranadar gestured at the other flesh golem wavering in the crowd several yards away.
“He doesn’t seem to be healing,” Talfi said.
“It’s not his fault,” Other Talfi said defensively. “I think he’s an early one, and she was still learning when she made him.”
“Will he interrupt us?” Ranadar asked.
“Probably not,” Other Talfi said.
“Then let’s leave him and go in,” Talfi growled, and did.
The building’s interior was a wreck, but the heavy wooden floor was solid, and the stone walls seemed steady. Even after months of exposure to the elements, the heavy smell of soot hung in the air. They did have to chase away half a dozen startled squatters, and Talfi felt bad about that, but they could come back shortly, and Ranadar promised to leave them a few coins.
The back wall sported a chimney and hearth, and they decided to set up there. The plaster and whitewash had long disappeared from the walls, and someone had made a serious effort to dig some of the stones out of the chimney’s masonry. Ranadar built a tiny fire in the hearth with some charcoal he had brought with him while on the other side of the room Talfi and Other Talfi silently laid out a partial ring of iron utensils—knives, spoons, tongs, skewers, and others—four feet across. One side of the ring was open. There was one spoon left over when they were finished, and Talfi stuffed it into his pocket.
“The sprites are airy, difficult creatures,” Ranadar said as he lit the fire. “They do not always concern themselves with the affairs you and I might, much in the way giants and merfolk have concerns that differ from those of the rest of the Stane and Kin.”
“Is that why they talk funny?” Talfi asked.
Ranadar took from his pack half a dozen bottles and jars he had bought at the market, along with a bundle of dried herbs. He also laid out a supply of food—cheese, sausage, bread, three pears, and a bottle of wine. “Their minds are only half in this world. But the royal family has always had a special rapport with the sprites. I fear Mother is exploiting it. I must do the same.” He breathed out heavily. “This will drain me considerably. I will need this food and your help to eat it when I am done.”
“What exactly are you doing?” Talfi said. “You haven’t explained very well.”
“I will open a Twist to Alfhame and use it to summon a sprite,” Ranadar said. “When it arrives, you will have to put it into the ring of iron and close the circle so it cannot escape.”
Talfi blinked at him. “You aren’t that good at Twisting. You said so yourself. You also said it takes a lot of power to Twist something from that far away.”
“I know.” Ranadar took another breath. “That is what all this material is for.”
He set about pouring and mixing from the bottles. The mixture itself he put into a small pot on the fire. It boiled quickly. Ranadar put on a leather glove and with it, he crushed a small amount of the dried herbs into the mix. The herbs had a sharp, oily smell that crinkled the insides of Talfi’s nose. Other Talfi sneezed. Ranadar removed the glove and shook it carefully to remove all the herb dust.
“You know I’m going to ask what that stuff is,” Talfi said, “so why don’t you just explain and save us the trouble?”
Ranadar took the little pot off the flame with the look of someone about to drink spider venom poured over broken glass. “The infusion is brandy and highly illegal painkillers. The herb is Tikkscock.”
“Oh.” Talfi’s eyes grew round and nervous. “That’s poisonous.”
“Not if it’s prepared properly,” Ranadar said. “And not if you’re Fae. Among the Fae, it boosts magic power. It also has a number of difficult side effects. Tikk is more cruel than kind.”
Other Talfi said, “Especially when you crush his—”
“How bad are the side effects?” Talfi asked.
“Most of them are ameliorated by the painkillers and brandy.” Ranadar sat next to the tiny fire and stared into the pot, a bird hypnotized by a snake. “I will be hungry when we are done. And I will want more of the herb. Do not give it to me.”
“Why?”
“It is addictive, and easy to overuse. This is why the Fae use it only rarely.”
“Ran,” said Other Talfi suddenly, “is this a good idea?”
Talfi, who was feeling much the same thing, could only nod, even though he wanted to push Other Talfi aside. “I don’t want you to get hurt. We can find another way to learn what we need to know.”
“There is no other way. I love you, my Talashka.”
Talfi barely had time to notice the flicker that crossed Other Talfi’s face before Ranadar closed his eyes and drank the potion.
There was only a small moment. Ranadar’s body stiffened. A golden glow started in his center and spread softly through his body like a candle flickering to life and steadying as the wick drew. Ranadar opened his eyes. The cornea and iris were filled with the pure blue of a noon sky. Talfi moved to go to him, but Other Talfi put a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “I know we want to, but we shouldn’t.”
Talfi wanted to shake Other Talfi’s hand off, wanted to go to Ranadar, but after a moment, reason prevailed. He set his mouth and stayed by the iron circle.
“Incredible,” Ranadar said in a low, rich voice Talfi had never heard before. A small spasm warped Ranadar’s features, then passed. The pain he had mentioned. “I feel it. Ashkame. The branches that Twist through the world. Yes. I can see them now. And … more.”
“More?” Talfi said. “What do you see, Ran?”
“The roots,” Ranadar said in that strange, low voice. “They are rotting. The magic twists them. The Tree tips, and this time it will fall.”
He rose to his feet, graceful as a young tree, and made a complicated set of gestures. His hands trailed bright golden light, leaving strange curved runes in the air. A rushing sound followed them. Ranadar’s face was gleeful, thrilled in a way that frightened Talfi more than a little. A bit of spittle ran from the corner of Ranadar’s mouth. Talfi exchanged a look with Other Talfi and he knew that the other man felt the same way. Perhaps they should stop him. But neither of them knew the repercussions of interrupting a spell like this, and the memory of losing his leg in a previous Twist was always fresh in Talfi’s mind. So he chewed his lip and said nothing.
“Come to me, you little bastard,” Ranadar murmured. The golden trails glowed brighter. “You cannot resist me. Come to me now.”
Ranadar punched the air and the golden light vanished. With a pop, a sprite appeared in midair before him. Its chaotic, ever-changing form went spiky with fear and surprise.
“You!” Ranadar snapped another gesture, like a man capturing a fly, and the sprite froze. Ranadar made a throwing motion. The sprite arced across the room through the opening in the ring of iron. It hit the open air at the back of the ring and bounced as if it had hit a physical barrier. Quickly, Talfi nudged a knife and a spatula into place, closing the circle.
The sprite bobbled in midair, recovered itself, and tried to flee, but when it hit the edge of the iron circle, it rebounded—once, twice, three times. A mewling sound filled the air. The sprite reminded Talfi of a small child pounding its fists on a locked door.
“No! No! Let me go!” it cried. “It hurts in spurts.”
Ranadar faced it from across the room, well away from the iron circle. His eyes kept their eerie blue. “Answer my questions, sprite!”
“Mired in iron! A dark day
for royal Fae to command this way,” the sprite whimpered in a pain-filled voice. “A cruel tool to blind one of your own kind. How could our one-day king do this dreadful thing?”
The words seemed to strike Ranadar with the force of closed fists. He flinched hard and his hands shook. The sprite’s final sentence rang in Talfi’s ears as well. Ranadar was still a prince of the Fae, and the sprites cared less for what was happening in the physical world than other Fae did. A sprite would see Ranadar as the up-and-coming king of Alfhame, no matter what he had done in the past, and it would be as confused by Ranadar commanding it with iron as a cat would be confused by its owner trying to drown it in a well. Iron was a terrible weapon to use against the Fae. Its merest touch disrupted their magic and confused their minds. The ease with which the Kin used iron was the only thing that kept the Fae from invading Balsia and taking it for their own, in fact. Imprisonment within an iron circle had to be one of the most painful, dreadful things one Fae could bring upon another, and even after everything Ranadar had done, he was still their prince.
“Answer quickly my questions and the questions of my friends,” Ranadar said, “and you may go.”
“Ask your task, Prince Ranadar, you are,” said the sprite.
Ranadar first said, “What is your name?”
“Bel-Jan-Who-Caroms-Over-Trees-by-Scarlet-Sunrise,” said the sprite.
“Did my mother, the queen, create these flesh golems?”
“Yes, yes!”
“How did she create them?” Talfi put in.
“With power from the late Fate.” Bel-Jan-Who-Caroms-Over-Trees-by-Scarlet-Sunrise flickered, and yet another Talfi was standing inside the circle. Talfi involuntarily backed up a step. “She—I mean the queen, long and lean—used a stream, a dream, a gleam, of your blood.”
Now Talfi’s legs went weak and he had to sit down. Other Talfi went with him.
“My blood,” Talfi whispered. “She’s creating the flesh golems, the other versions of me, from my own blood. Where did she get my blood?”
But even as he formed the question, he knew the answer. His mind fled back to the awful day in the throne room of Palana. Danr was holding the newly reformed Iron Axe and they had just realized that the third piece they needed—the Axe’s magic—was the same power that kept bringing Talfi back from the dead, and the only way to release the magic back to the Axe was to kill Talfi with it. Permanently. And at that moment, a piercing pain ripped through Talfi’s back. He’d had just enough time to look down and see the spear point emerge from his chest before he’d collapsed and died. In a pool of his own blood. What had happened to that blood after Danr had all but destroyed Palana in the Battle of the Twist? He had never given it a thought. Until now.
“Explain further,” Ranadar ordered. “Be quick!”
“The sky makes it hard to try,” Bel-Jan said in Talfi’s voice, and Talfi’s skin prickled. “The essence of the self is blood and bone, and from that is all the flesh grown and sown. We cower before the queen’s new power, and the ash—dash, mash, flash—tree—flee, sea, key—contains the Fate—late, date, create the flesh.” The sprite popped back into its own form, twisting and writhing in midair. “Oh! Regain pain flame disdain!”
“What’s he saying?” Other Talfi said. “I can’t follow him.”
Ranadar set his jaw. The eerie blue in his eyes was fading. “My mother got hold of Talfi’s blood. Blood and bone contain the essence of who we are, and my mother is using that essence to create flesh copies of Talfi. Normally, she could not dream of doing such a thing—no one in the world could—but she has Pendra trapped in that ash tree. That gives Mother more than enough power to do this. I would guess that the reason some of the flesh golems are disfigured is that the process is imperfect.”
“Yes!” whimpered the sprite. “A mess. But it improves, moves. She makes more, Talfis galore.”
“Why me?” Talfi said, but he realized he knew the answer. “It’s because I don’t die. My flesh and bones regrow, and that’s why she can make hundreds of golems out of the tiny bits she got.”
The sprite bobbed an assent.
“What is she making them for?” Ranadar demanded. “Speak!”
Bel-Jan spun unhappily within the circle. “She has forbidden, rid and bidden that no one say, nay.”
“Then you can sit in that circle until Death calls for you,” Ranadar said in a soft, cool voice Talfi had never heard before. The blue glow was nearly gone.
“I cannot, may not, will not.” Bel-Jan spun madly in place, so agitated he failed to rhyme. “Must not.”
“We won’t let anyone know you told, Bel-Jan-Who-Caroms-Over-Trees-by-Scarlet-Sunrise,” Talfi said. “No one will ever find out. Besides, you’d be telling your future king.”
“That is true, do,” said Bel-Jan-Who-Caroms-Over-Trees-by-Scarlet-Sunrise.
“You can tell,” said Other Talfi. “Your future king wants to know.”
Bel-Jan hesitated one more maddening moment, then said, “The orders will be to invade, blade. Destroy and redeploy the Kin from within.”
“Oh,” Talfi said. His mouth went dry as he thought about the crowd of selves Ranadar had seen. “There’s already a bunch of … me here, and if they suddenly attack the city, it’ll catch everyone by surprise.”
“They could easily destroy a large part of Balsia,” Ranadar agreed softly. “Even if they did not capture the city, they could damage it enough for my people to invade it without trouble. My mother is intelligent.”
Bel-Jan said, “Hail the queen!”
“Hail the queen!” said Other Talfi automatically.
“What?” Talfi stared at him as a dreadful thought crawled through his mind. “Are you obeying Queen Gwylph right now?”
“I … I … ,” other Talfi stammered. “I can’t …”
“She forbade you to speak of it,” Ranadar supplied.
Other Talfi remained silent, but his expression spoke the truth. Talfi swallowed as the full implications stole over him. The flesh golems were immensely strong, incredibly difficult to kill, and they didn’t feel pain. And they had already been seeded throughout Balsia.
“Bel-Jan,” he said, “how many of … me has the queen sent?”
“A nifty four hundred fifty.”
Talfi felt the blood drain from his face, leaving cold skin behind. “There are four hundred and fifty copies of me in the city right now?”
“More to come, all mum,” said the sprite.
“The Nine,” Talfi breathed. “We need to tell someone. The prince. Or the—”
The ground rocked beneath him. Talfi lost his balance. The floor seemed to rumple like a blanket, sending Talfi tumbling to the floor. His breath smashed out of him.
“Earthquake!” Ranadar shouted. “Out! Get out of the house!”
Talfi tried to scramble upright, but the shaking floor kept knocking his feet out from under him. Panic overtook him. The ground wasn’t supposed to move. It was a solid thing. Forcing fear back, he pushed himself upward again, and failed. The floor rocked. Iron utensils flew in all directions, breaking the circle. Bel-Jan-Who-Caroms-Over-Trees-by-Scarlet-Sunrise fled out of a window in a trail of light. The walls groaned like angry ghosts. In front of Talfi, a spiderweb of cracks rushed up the chimney. A hand grabbed his arm and steadied him a little, letting him get to his feet. It was Other Talfi.
“Come on, First!” he shouted. “Let’s—”
The chimney collapsed. Talfi had enough time to throw up a hand before a ton of rocks landed square on him.
Chapter Eleven
Danr sat up in the Garden. He was naked, in his human form, and pain blazed through his back and shoulder. The Garden’s gray light soothed his eyes, and the smells of the plants stretching in all directions calmed him, slowed his racing heart, despite the awful pain. The soft sound of water dripped somewhere nearby. This place was comforting and quiet. Why had he been so upset? How had he gotten hurt? He couldn’t remember.
He didn’t want to
be in his human form. It was injured and too small. He concentrated, pushing the pain aside, and found the power within himself. His form expanded, his jaw and teeth lengthened, his muscles bulged, and he was in his familiar, comfortable half-troll shape. The pain slipped away, and a crossbow bolt dropped to the ground behind him. He blinked at it. Where had that come from? And what did it matter, anyway?
Another smell, the smell of rot, assailed him. He hoisted himself to his feet and came to a set of plants all tangled together. One of them was a half-dead climbing rose that had tangled itself around a rotting blob of mushroom. The rose’s roots were infected with more rot, and its thorns had snagged a number of plants around it. The mushroom was also dying, and in pain to boot. This wasn’t right. They both needed to come out. Danr reached down for the rose with one large hand and the mushroom with the other.
“Why are you here, friend?”
It was Nu with her seed bag. She was staring at him from under the hood on her green cloak. Tan was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m … just here,” he said, putting his hands behind his back.
“Hmm.” Nu pulled the drawstring on her bag shut. “Tan and I sensed someone else was here earlier, when our new sister came to visit. Was that you?”
Danr thought a moment. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “It may have been. Where is Tan?”
“We aren’t joined at wrist and ankle,” she replied. “What were you going to do with the rose and mushroom?”
“Pull them out,” Danr said promptly. “The rose is tangling itself in everything around it, and the mushroom is dying. It’s in pain, somehow.”
“Indeed,” Nu agreed. “But have you thought that if you pull the rose out, you will also damage the plants it has entangled?”
“No,” said Danr the truth-teller. “Should I try to work it free instead? That might take a long time.”
“Sometimes speed is more necessary than care. Other times, we must take care for the surrounding plants before we remove a tangle.” Nu narrowed her eyes. “Which is more important here, care or speed?”
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