Bone War

by Steven Harper

  “What is it?” the young man asked. He had Talfi’s voice. Talfi’s tongue froze in his mouth like a block of ice. Chills ran ghostly hands up and down his skin. He couldn’t think. His mind had utterly stopped.

  The young man moved forward, and the light illuminated more of his face. His melted face. Talfi touched his own face, half expecting to feel unnatural, stretched skin. The second figure remained in the shadows, but his height and build were Talfi’s as well. Talfi’s own skin crawled around his body like cold worms.

  “What is it?” the first man asked again.

  “I … ,” Talfi managed. “Are you … ?”

  The head of an arrow slid over Talfi’s shoulder. Ranadar was aiming straight at the man’s heart. “Who in Vik’s damned name are you?”

  Both men froze. The second man made an inarticulate gargling sound. The candle wax man’s mouth fell open. “Ranadar?” he said. “Ran?”

  “Ran?” echoed the shadowy second man. His voice was rough as a cat’s cough.

  The arrowhead jerked. Talfi’s hands and feet were ice. “Who are you?” Talfi said hoarsely. “How do you know us?”

  “Know you?” the candle-wax man said, clearly himself shocked and puzzled. “We’re … wait. You’re … you’re Talfi.”

  “I know who I am,” Talfi said. “Who are you?”

  More gargling sounds emerged from the shadowy man’s throat. He slid forward into the light. His face was scarred even worse, and his body was more twisted. Still, it was clear he was also Talfi. One of his eyes was melted shut, but his good eye, wide and sky blue, stared at Ranadar with something like adoration. Talfi’s stomach twisted.

  “Who are you?” he demanded yet again. “Both of you?”

  “I’m … you,” the candle wax man said. “Talfi.”

  “Where did you come from?” Ranadar’s arrow had steadied now, and his voice carried steel. “Speak, or this arrow will find your heart.”

  The second man abruptly spun and fled, trailing his ragged cloak. His footsteps squished and thudded into the dark distance. Ranadar’s fingers tensed around the arrow, but he didn’t loose it.

  “You won’t shoot him,” the candle wax man said. “Any more than you would shoot me. It would be putting an arrow in your own heart, Ran.”

  “Stop calling him that!” Talfi burst out.

  The candle wax man reached out and took Talfi’s unresisting hand in his own. It was a moment of perfect symmetry, like holding his own hands but being unable to feel them. It was the strangest sensation of Talfi’s life, and he recalled getting his neck broken by a giant squid. “I remember you. I know you. I am you. Talfi. My name is Talfi.”

  “How?” Ranadar withdrew the arrow but didn’t relax his guard. “Talfi was born before the Sundering. He has died countless times and come back to life. You cannot be him.”

  “I … remember that,” the man said, his hands still gripping Talfi’s. “I remember being held down on the altar, and I remember my father turning away and I remember the trollwife raising her knife.”

  Talfi’s knees felt like rotten bread dough. “How do you know that?” he whispered. “No one knows that. No one except—”

  “Danr and Aisa and Ranadar,” said the other man. “And Grandfather Wyrm.”

  Ranadar sheathed the arrow and set the bow across his shoulders. “I need to examine you. And I do not wish to do it in a urine-soaked alley.”

  Talfi became aware that he was still holding the other man’s hands, and he snatched them away. “Where, then?”

  “Our room at the boardinghouse,” Ranadar stated firmly. “For privacy.”

  “What makes you think I’ll come with you?” the other man countered.

  “You will come.” Ranadar turned and stalked away. A moment later, Talfi followed. A moment after that, the candle wax man followed, too.

  *

  Talfi sat on the bed and watched while Ranadar examined the other man. It was like seeing a road accident. He didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t help it. The other man stood a few paces away, his dirty, ragged clothes hanging off his body, and he looked, moved, and even breathed like Talfi his own self. And yet … he didn’t. There was the melted look of his face, of course, but there was another quality about him that Talfi couldn’t quite put a finger to. Perhaps it was the pulse jumping at his throat seemed a little off, or that his hair didn’t curl quite right, or that his left arm seemed a fraction longer than his right. Or maybe it was just Talfi’s imagination. His stomach turned.

  Ranadar, meanwhile, conducted his examination with a strange thoroughness that seemed almost … intimate. He didn’t actually touch the other man, but he ran his palms over the man’s body a bare inch above his skin with his eyes closed. His hands glowed with a faint yellow light, and his breath stirred the other man’s hair. Talfi felt hot and scratchy and tense. The other man met Talfi’s eyes, and Talfi wanted to crawl away. The mirror was looking back at him and telling him that he himself was the reflection.

  “You need to tell us where you came from,” Talfi said. “No more of this ‘I am Talfi’ garbage.”

  “I have gaps in my memory,” the candle wax man confessed in Talfi’s voice. “I remember—”

  “No,” Talfi interrupted. “I want to know how you’re so strong and why Kalessa’s sword didn’t hurt you in the market square and how you came into existence. You and … the other one of you. Of me.”

  “I … want to tell you,” said the candle wax man. “But I can’t. I’m not allowed.”

  “Not allowed?” Ranadar repeated. “By whom?”

  “I can’t say that, either,” he said. “I wish I could, but I can’t. You can threaten me or hurt me or do anything else you want, but I can’t say.”

  Talfi didn’t like the sound of that at all, and from the looks of it, neither did Ranadar. Best to try from another angle, then.

  “You know Danr and Aisa and Ran,” Talfi said. “And me.”

  “Well, yeah. I didn’t expect to see you in the market like that, though,” the other man said as Ranadar, tight-lipped, knelt to run his hands down one leg.

  “Who were you expecting to see?” Talfi countered.

  “No one. I mean …” He shook his scarred head. “It’s confusing. I remember a lot about my life. Our life. But I know that I’m not you. Except I am, because I remember everything.”

  Talfi had no idea what this meant, so he changed the subject again. “Who were you talking to in the alley?”

  “I was talking to … I guess he’s my brother.” The other man seemed genuinely puzzled, as if he had never put these concepts into words before now.

  “He looked like you—me—us,” Talfi said. “But even more melted. And Ranadar saw a lot of others just like you both.”

  “Yes.” The candle wax man swallowed. “Look, I know this is confusing. It’s confusing to me. I’m in this city, and I know my friends Danr and Kalessa and Aisa are here somewhere, but they don’t know me.”

  Talfi forced himself to get up and look the candle wax man straight in the face. Ranadar continued his own examination. Talfi stared at the man’s eyes, the man’s hair, his stretched and glistening skin. The candle wax man bore this in silence. Then Talfi noticed something. The skin on the scarred left side wasn’t as taut as he remembered. The cheek muscles had filled out a little bit, and the scars on the ear had definitely smoothed out.

  “Is your face healing?” Talfi said incredulously.

  The candle wax man put his unscarred right hand to his face. “I don’t know. Is it?”

  “Your scars are definitely getting better.” Talfi didn’t know whether he should be fascinated or horrified.

  “That’s good, right?” The candle wax man held up his left hand. It had improved as well.

  Talfi sat back on the bed. “How did you get the scars?”

  “I’ve always had them.” He sighed while Ranadar ran a hand over his foot. “I don’t know where they came from or why I have them. But I know my name
is Talfi because your name is Talfi and you’re the First.”

  “The First?” Talfi repeated.

  “The first one of us,” the man explained as Ranadar, now looking pale, came up his leg.

  Talfi was ready to hit something in disgust and frustration. “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Ranadar said standing up, “that this man is a golem.”

  Then he snatched up the chamber pot and vomited into it. Startled, Talfi handed him a glass of water from the pitcher on the washstand. The other Talfi moved to help Ranadar to a chair, but Ranadar waved him away, and the other Talfi dropped his hands, looking awkward.

  “Are you all right, Ran? What do you mean he’s a golem?” Talfi asked.

  “Made of flesh instead of clay,” Ranadar said. “But a golem, nonetheless. The runes that grant him life are drawn with blood vessels under his skin, and the blood smear that binds him to his owner is hidden with a glamour that I cannot break, so he looks human, but he is definitely a golem.”

  “That’s why you’re so strong,” Talfi said. “And why Kalessa’s sword didn’t hurt you.”

  The other Talfi shrugged.

  “He would have all those abilities,” Ranadar said, his face still a little green. “The flesh is not quite alive. It is a … copy. Stabbing it is like stabbing dead meat. Watch.” With elven quickness, he drew his bronze knife and stabbed the other Talfi in the side. Talfi gasped and touched his own side in unconscious sympathy.

  “Hey!” the other man said. “What was that for?”

  Ranadar pulled out his knife. There was no blood—only a soft sucking sound that turned Talfi’s stomach and a hole in the side of the other man’s tunic. Through it, Talfi saw the bloodless slit in the flesh. Ranadar sheathed his knife. “See? The magic gives him life. Of a sort. I think the magic that made him was imperfect, but it is healing him bit by bit even as we speak.”

  “And why did you throw up?” the other man asked, running his fingertips over the small opening.

  “The magic.” Ranadar closed his eyes a moment. “Touching it was like … dragging my tongue through manure. I would rather climb into that chamber pot than do it again.”

  “Gosh, thanks,” said the other man in an exact echo of Talfi’s own voice and tone. His words were glib, but Talfi caught a hint of pain behind them, and the other man’s sky blue eyes softened when he looked at Ranadar. Talfi set his mouth.

  “I do not blame you,” Ranadar said to him. “You are who you are, through no fault of your own.”

  “And who is that?” Talfi demanded.

  “I’m me, but I’m made out of you, Talfi,” the other Talfi said. “It’s why I look like you and sound like you. The same’s true of the others.”

  Talfi was glad he was already sitting down. His legs wouldn’t have supported him if he’d been standing. “How can you be made from me? Who made all of you?”

  But even as he asked the question, he realized he knew the answer. It slid down the back of his head, cold and sharp as an icicle. His eyes met Ranadar’s, and the horror in them told Talfi that the same cold idea had come to Ranadar as well.

  “He can’t tell us,” Ranadar said slowly. “His maker forbade him to say. But I think we both know who it is.”

  “Your mother,” Talfi whispered. “Queen Gwylph of Alfhame.”

  Chapter Nine

  A red moon was just rising over the monastery walls when the first creature leaped at Danr. It illuminated the darkening village road that slipped past the monastery and gleamed off the feathers and scales of the beast. It had the head of an eagle and the body of a mountain lion. A hissing snake grew from between its shoulder blades. Behind it stomped a seven-foot tree with human arms covered in bark. A bull with the hindquarters of a giant wolf bellowed and pawed the earth while an entire flock of red canaries with ferocious teeth and long, shiny claws swirled toward them, tearing the air with high-pitched shrieks.

  With a grunt, Danr caught the eagle-lion and fell backward. The eagle-lion snapped the air with its beak. Danr kicked hard with his knees. The creature flew over his head, but a sharp pain pierced his shoulder—the snake bit him as it shot by. The eagle-lion flew several yards down the village street, screeching and hissing as it went.

  Kalessa’s blade flicked into a gleaming great sword. Her battle cry rent the early-night sky as she charged the bull monster. It bellowed again, lowered its horns, and charged in turn. The two thundered toward each other, horns and sword held high. Seconds before they would have smashed into each other, Kalessa leaped high and somersaulted between the beast’s horns. Her sword stabbed down, catching the creature between its ribs and spearing its heart. It bellowed in pain and crashed to the dusty road. Unfortunately, the motion wrenched the hilt out of Kalessa’s grip. She stumbled away from the convulsing corpse without her weapon.

  Slynd was having difficulties of his own. The fifteen-foot tree thing stormed at him while the red canaries swooped down in a chittering horde. The tree swatted at him with a heavy, branchlike arm. Slynd curled out of the way, but the canaries also slashed and sliced his hide with their razor claws and teeth. The tree brought down a massive foot before Slynd could eel aside, and it caught him behind the head. His body lashed and squirmed, but the tree was too heavy.

  “The abbess wants their blood!” shouted a woman’s voice from atop the monastery wall. “Bring them inside, precious ones!”

  Danr didn’t spare the monastery wall a glance, but he noted the words. Whoever was up there wanted them alive, and that gave him an advantage. He rolled to his feet, his arm burning where the snake had bitten him. No time for fear. No time for thought. Leaving the unbalanced eagle-lion behind, he charged at the tree. With a great roar, he crashed straight into it. The shock jarred his spine and creaked his ribs. The tree stood still for a moment with Slynd’s neck pinned beneath its knobby foot. Then it creaked slowly backward. Its great arms made slow circles, but balance eluded it. The tree crashed to the road. Its arms waved helplessly in the air.

  “Aisa!” Danr clutched at his burning shoulder. Was the poison deadly, despite the woman’s orders? “Aisa! Where are you?”

  Slynd snapped at the canaries, which continued to slash at him. Kalessa leaped back to the dying bull-wolf and reached for her sword hilt, but the creature’s death throes wrenched the blade back and forth. She couldn’t catch it. A hissing screech behind Danr told him the eagle-lion had recovered and was readying itself to pounce again. He spun to face it.

  “Aisa!” he shouted.

  “Get the orc!” called another voice, a man’s this time. “Bring her!”

  Why did the monastery want them? The eagle-lion leaped again, but this time it was going for Kalessa, who was a few paces away. Danr waited until it was nearly on him, then punched it between the eyes. Or tried to. Even as he swung his fist toward the eagle’s head, the strength drained out of him. The punch missed entirely. Danr went to hands and knees, recognizing the feeling.

  “Aisa,” he gasped. “Not now!”

  But it was too late. His strength was nearly gone.

  The eagle-lion’s arc carried it toward Kalessa, but she saw it coming. She managed at the last moment to grasp the sword hilt. Instantly, it flicked into its knife form, freeing it from its prison of dead monster flesh. Kalessa flung herself to the ground. The eagle-lion sailed over her, missing her by inches. But just as it had for Danr, the serpent’s head lashed down and stung her shoulder.

  Slynd was still snapping at the red canaries that tormented him. They opened up weeping wounds on his side and back. He had managed to dispatch perhaps half of them. The ground shook with his rumblings and squirmings.

  Aisa burst from between two village houses in the form of a tusked elephant twice as tall as Slynd and heavier than any creature Danr had ever seen. Darkness gathered at the edges of Danr’s vision, and his limbs grew heavy. Aisa trumpeted and thundered toward the eagle-lion. It gathered itself. Kalessa staggered, looking as tired as Danr felt. What was go
ing on? If Aisa had taken power from him, they shouldn’t both be—

  The poison. The poison was sending him to sleep.

  Aisa rushed at the eagle-lion, and this time the creature gave ground. It scrambled aside, dodging her trampling feet. Aisa overran and whirled in an impossible move that sent her sprawling. In midfall she changed into a great falcon that swooped in a tight arc and shot back toward the eagle-lion. Slynd continued to lash at the flock of red canaries. Sleep came over Danr in warm waves. He tried to fight it one more time, but his eyes were heavy, so heavy. They slid shut just as Aisa reached her foe.

  *

  The soft light of late-afternoon sat pleasantly on Danr’s head, and he sighed with relief as he pressed his back against the rough bark of an ash tree. He could still smell the foul undercurrent of rot in the Garden, but it was still beautiful in its strange chaos. It felt as if he could sit here forever. Infinite colors both bright and muted exploded in all directions. Vegetables mingled with flowers mingled with leaves mingled with vines, and it was all just as it should be. Except for the rot, of course. Without giving thought to how he had come to this place or why, Danr leaned down to examine some of the plants at his feet with the experienced eye of a farmer. Root rot had invaded some of them. These two were in danger. That one was a lost cause. Perhaps if he uprooted it, he could stop it from infecting the ones around it. He pulled it out with a sharp jerk, revealing slimy, dying roots. A tiny scream thinned and died in the still air.

  “Is someone here?” It was Nu’s voice. She was only a few yards away, around the other side of the tree with her bag of seeds.