Bone War

by Steven Harper

  Torth dashed off. Danr leaned against the cave wall and breathed deeply of the cool air. His nausea faded. “Cave-ins?”

  Vesha closed her eyes, and Danr could almost see her reaching out with her mind. “No,” she replied. “It was minor here. Farther south it was much more powerful, but here it’s fine.”

  “Good news, then,” Aisa said. “Whose bone was it?”

  Still Vesha didn’t answer.

  Danr closed his right eye. The world flickered and he saw … truth. Vesha was walking through a stone tunnel illuminated by quiet mushrooms, but she was also standing over her sister Bund’s body while a Twist slammed shut before them both. Also lying on the cavern floor was …

  “Talfi,” Danr said in a hushed voice.

  Everyone stopped, including Vesha. She turned to stare at him with eyes as hard and unblinking as brown granite. “The truth-teller knows,” she said.

  “When the Twist cut off Talfi’s leg, you kept it.” Cold horror slid all around Danr’s body like chilled dog vomit. “You took it to the dwarfs, and you stripped the meat off it and you forged a sword out of the bones. That’s why the Bone Sword can fight Death. Not because it’s made from a living thing, but because it’s made from a living thing that can’t die.”

  “Yes,” Vesha said simply. “My sister was dead, and the leg was there, and I sensed its magic. I kept it. My sister was dead, but your Talfi was still alive. Keeping his leg seemed fitting somehow. And then when Death cursed me, I knew exactly how to use it.”

  Danr shook his head hard. This explained Death’s reaction to the Bone Sword and Vesha’s asking after Talfi. Vik! She had Talfi’s leg bone down here—and Death wanted him to use it. What kind of world had the Nine created?

  Kalessa looked agitated, and Aisa seemed ready to fight, but Danr stepped ahead of them. “Let’s just get the Sword, all right? We’ll talk about ethics later.”

  “I still haven’t decided if I’m lending it to you,” Vesha said with deceptive mildness. “You saved us all, but you also killed my sister.”

  That still hurt. At one time Danr would have backed down, but that time was past. “Grandmother Bund let herself die because she loved me and because she loved you,” he said. “She chose to sacrifice herself just like you did, and I know sacrifice, yes, I do.”

  Vesha’s face was made of iron. Was it going to crack? Before Danr could find out, Torth rushed up to them, eyes wild.

  “The vault!” he panted. “Fairies have gotten into the vault!”

  All of them bolted forward. They clattered down one more staircase and came to a plain stone door. When Danr got closer, he realized the door hadn’t been carved so much as forged. It was solidified lava, polished smooth. A tiny keyhole was in the middle, and the door itself hung open. Without further words, they shoved their way inside.

  Beyond the door was a great vault the size of a small castle. Ledges and nooks lined the walls, and huge shelves hung on chains from the ceiling. Bound chests and metal boxes and knotted sacks bulged on every surface, and great piles of gold and silver coins gleamed on the floor.

  In the center of the room, a short pillar twisted up from the floor. It wasn’t made of stone or wood, but of solid darkness, an ebony that sucked in all light around it. The pillar moved and squirmed like a living thing. Cradled atop the pillar was a simple glass case, narrow and sleek, and inside the case was a long white sword that stood out against the black pillar like the finger of a ghost floating in a dark room. Actually, the sword wasn’t quite white. It was more translucent, like a bone that had been stretched thinner than a leaf, and looked as though it might slice through a heart, or a soul. A bloodred ruby was set into the pommel, and the cross-guard was heavy ivory, carved in thousands of runes. More runes curled up and down the blade. The sword looked both delicate and deadly.

  Unfortunately, also in the room were hundreds of fairies, the small, earthy Fae. Fairy chitter-chatter filled the air like autumn leaves. Each creature was no more than waist-high on a human, with nut-brown skin, knobby joints, a bald head, a wizened face, large eyes, and sail-like ears. A group of them had formed a pyramid that reached the top of the twisted pillar, and the fairy at the top was cutting through the glass with a strange blade of a kind Danr had never seen before.

  A few steps away from the pillar, the air rippled and distorted, as if a small heat wave had been trapped there, and the distortion had a night black border. An open Twist.

  “They are stealing the Bone Sword!” Kalessa shouted. She shot forward with Slynd beside her. The fairies, however, had seen them the moment they entered, and every one of them vanished. Kalessa and Slynd snapped at empty air.

  “An invisibility glamour!” Vesha shouted. “Watch yourselves!”

  Aisa pulled Kalessa’s blade from her belt and flicked it into a great iron sickle that she swept back and forth in front of her. There was a screech, and a fairy popped back into view, clutching its bleeding arm and howling in pain. It skittered up a wall. “You can’t stop us!” it shouted.

  “I would tell you to leave now or die,” Aisa shot back, “but I think no one wants to let you live!”

  Kalessa whipped about. She lashed treasures off their shelves. Coins scattered in a golden rain. A number of thumps and screams said she made contact, but the fairies remained invisible. Slynd snapped at empty air again and made swallowing motions. A small bulge went down his throat.

  Vesha raised her arms. Darkness flooded from her sleeves and flowed over the room, effectively extinguishing most of the light from the mushrooms. Danr’s trollish eyes, however, were unaffected.

  “We can’t see you,” Vesha barked, “but now you can’t see anything!” She strode into the vault, lashing about with her massive arms.

  “Aisa!” Danr called. “Hit that Twist with your iron weapon!”

  “How?” Aisa yelled back. “I cannot see it!”

  Danr closed his right eye. Every fairy in the room snapped into view. The one at the top of the pyramid had finished cutting the glass and was already reaching into the case. Its hand closed over the hilt of the Bone Sword, still hidden by the glamour.

  “They’ve got it!” Danr bellowed. He bolted forward and bowled straight into the pile of fairies. The impact crashed his teeth together. He went down. Fairies flew in all directions. The fairy with the Bone Sword lost its grip and went flying. It whirled through the air, sheared through a metal box, and clattered across the floor. A thousand gold teeth spilled from the broken box. The Sword’s ruby pommel stone gleamed like red anger, even in the darkness.

  “I see it!” Torth dashed over to snatch it up, but almost immediately cried out in pain. Two fairies had latched onto his arm and sunk their sharp teeth into his hand. He howled and dropped the Sword. A third fairy snatched it up and fled straight toward the open Twist. Torth wrenched his arms around. One of the fairies slammed against the wall. There was a crunch, and the fairy went limp. The second fairy kept a death grip on Torth’s hand, however, and the fairy with the Sword was only a few steps away from the Twist, which was right behind Aisa. But Aisa couldn’t see it.

  “Vesha,” Danr bellowed, “cancel the darkness so Aisa can see! Aisa, kill the Twist behind you!”

  The darkness vanished. Aisa spun, but it took her several seconds to find the Twist, barely visible as a black-bordered distortion in the air. The fairy with the Bone Sword was already leaping toward it. Without thinking, Danr lunged for the creature. With the tips of his fingers, he caught the fairy around the ankle just as it entered the Twist. In that moment, Aisa spotted the Twist and slashed the sickle through it.

  A thunderous explosion knocked Danr backward. Light smashed his eyes, and noise boomed against his very bones. He slammed against a wall, and pain crushed his back. Dazed, he slid to the floor, both blind and deaf. The world rocked and spun, and nausea heaved in his stomach. The pain throbbed up and down his spine. All he could do was lie there and try to breathe.

  Eventually, the pain lessened and he was ab
le to push himself into a sitting position. His ears rang, but his vision was clearing. With aching slowness, he grabbed one of the stone niches above his head and used it to pull himself upright, wincing at every movement.

  The room was devastated. Piles of worked gold and silver lay everywhere. The boxes and cases were scattered and broken, their gilded contents strewn about the room. Hundreds of fairy corpses had been flung everywhere, motionless as broken dolls. The room smelled of hot metal and mangled mushrooms.

  Kalessa and Slynd were wound together in an emerald tangle. Torth and Vesha were collapsed in heaps near the door. And Aisa! Where was Aisa? Fighting the pounding pain in his back, Danr desperately scanned the room, looking for her. She lay half-buried in a pile of platinum armbands. Danr hobbled over to her, heart pounding. She had to be all right. She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be—

  Aisa coughed and tried to move, but the load of silver was too much for her. Relief so powerful it made him giddy swept over Danr. He leaned down to help free her and noticed for the first time what he was holding in his hand. It was a fairy’s leg, sheared off and cauterized at the upper thigh. Danr dropped it with a shudder. It landed with a small, sad thump at his feet. Still wincing at the hot pain coursing across his back, he helped clear the silver away from Aisa. Carefully, she sat up.

  “Can you hear me?” he asked, and his own voice was faint to himself.

  She pointed to her ear, shook her head, and flinched from pain of her own. That was when Danr noticed her arm jutted at an unusual angle. She looked down at it as if puzzled, then looked back up at Danr. Vik, his back hurt. And now that he had time to take stock, he noticed it was hard to breathe. The explosion must have cracked a rib, or even two. He tried to kneel down next to Aisa, but this caused a fresh wave of pain that made him dizzy.

  Aisa held up her good hand, halting him, then closed her eyes for a moment. A soft golden light slipped over her, and she changed into a small white cat. The cat squirmed out of her clothes and almost immediately changed back into a naked Aisa. She held up her broken arm, which was now whole.

  Vik! He had forgotten. Danr reached inside himself for his own power and took his human shape while Aisa scrambled back into her dress. The pain vanished. His vision cleared completely and his hearing returned. His clothes collapsed around him like a bad tent, so he quickly pulled the power a second time and changed back.

  “That’s better,” Aisa said, retrieving Kalessa’s blade, which had fallen nearby and reverted to its default knife shape.

  Danr took a moment to revel in the absence of pain, then put his arm around Aisa. “I was afraid you were—”

  “I know,” she said. “So was I. I am glad we are unhurt. But we should see to everyone else before we celebrate.”

  Torth and Vesha, with their solid troll bodies, had fared better and were only stunned, as were Kalessa and Slynd, though it took some time to untangle them. The fairies were all clearly dead.

  “What happened?” Vesha said. “Where’s the Sword?”

  Danr cast about. The Sword was nowhere to be seen. Only the forlorn fairy leg lay bent on the floor, as if in trade.

  “I think the fairy and the Sword went through the Twist at the same time the sickle touched it,” Danr said. “It slammed shut and cut off the fairy’s leg.”

  The implication hung heavy in the room. Queen Gwylph had the Bone Sword.

  “Vik!” Vesha turned and slammed the wall with her fist. Magic blasted from the blow, and the entire vault shook. Danr nearly lost his balance. Vesha slammed the wall again and again, and each time the vault shook. Danr stumbled forward and grabbed her arm.

  “Aunt Vesha!” he shouted. “You’re bringing the place down!”

  Vesha started to hit one more time, then visibly forced herself to regain control. Her breath came in short gasps and her eyes were wild with volcanic fury. “This won’t stand!” she snarled. “It will not!”

  A mass of frantic-looking trolls and dwarfs appeared at the vault door. Vesha whirled on them. “Get out!”

  They fled, slamming the door behind them.

  “We’ll get it back from her, Aunt,” Torth said. “We will.”

  Vesha started to snarl again, then turned her back for a long moment. The tremors in the cavern died down as her magic subsided. When she turned around again, she had regained more composure.

  “How did those fairies get in here?” she said with deadly calm. “We’re deep under the Iron Mountains. Iron. No Fae has ever been able to Twist through them, let alone do it all the way from Alfhame and find the power to hold a Twist open for so long.”

  “The power is easy enough when you have a Gardener all to yourself,” Danr pointed out. “Pendra’s power isn’t limited by distance. Or iron.”

  “Then why did the touch of iron collapse the Twist?” Kalessa countered. Her tongue flicked the air with agitation.

  “Hmm,” Aisa said. “I do not like to say.”

  “Spit it out,” Vesha said.

  “I think the iron sickle did nothing to the Twist,” Aisa said. “Rather than let Hamzu pull the fairy back or allow him to follow the fairy through, Queen Gwylph slammed the Twist shut the moment she had the Bone Sword in her hands. The explosion was to shove us back—and keep the fairies from revealing her plans.”

  “She killed her own people to ensure their silence?” Kalessa gasped, deeply offended and horrified both. “This is beyond monstrous!”

  “The Elf Queen is wielding power she does not understand,” Aisa said with a shake of her head. “And she is using it in terrible ways. Now that she has created life, death means little. She will only become worse as her power grows.”

  “Monstrous,” Kalessa repeated, flicking her tongue again. “Was the Twist related to the earthquake?”

  “I can’t imagine it wasn’t,” Vesha said. “That would explain why I felt sick. The earth itself is being corrupted, and that affects Stane everywhere.”

  “There is more,” Aisa added. “The Twist was not created with a Gardener’s power or with Fae magic. I felt that the moment the sickle touched it. The iron had no effect because it was yet a different type of Twist.”

  “What kind was it, then?” Vesha said.

  “Did you not recognize it?” Aisa countered. “The black border. Its easy ability to punch past iron.” She took a breath. “The Twist was Stane, my queen.”

  Silence dropped across the vault. Vesha worked her long jaw back and forth. “That’s not possible. Gwylph is a master of the Twist, but she can’t use Stane magic. Not even with the help of a …”

  She trailed off and looked at Danr. Danr met her eyes. A terrible thought crossed his mind, and he knew she was having the same thought.

  “What happened to the box I gave you?” she asked evenly.

  Danr had to speak, but since he didn’t readily know the answer, the truth-teller in him allowed him a few moments to think. When Vesha had appointed him ambassador to the Kin, she gave him a box that was actually a Twist in solid form. It allowed him to pull gifts—bribes, really—from the Stane treasure vault from wherever he happened to be. He had given coins, golden goblets, and the gilded, bejeweled skull of Bal himself to the humans, and to the orcs he had given more coins and gems and gleaming swords and runic daggers, all in the hope of creating allies with the Stane.

  “I couldn’t bring it with me to Palana in Alfhame,” Danr said. “We were disguising ourselves as slaves, and slaves own nothing, so I left the box with the orcs in Xaron. Kalessa’s father said he’d hold it until I could come back for it, but I never had the chance.”

  “Gwylph has been a step ahead of us,” Aisa breathed. “She used Pendra’s power and her own mastery of the Twist to warp the box to her own purposes and steal the Bone Sword.”

  “How did she even know the box existed?” Torth asked. “Or where to find it?”

  Aisa gave him a scathing look. “Pendra knew.”

  “Father!” Kalessa said suddenly. “The elf queen took the box
from my father! What happened to him? And my family? And my Nest?” Her body quivered. “We must find out! We have to go to Xaron! Can you Twist us there?”

  “Let me think,” Vesha said. “I have to think.”

  Dark guilt settled on Danr’s shoulders and made his stomach into a black hole. If the Fae had hurt Kalessa’s family, it would be his fault for leaving the box with Kalessa’s father. He should have known better, should have kept the box with him.

  Vesha paced to the center of the vault, to the spot where the Twist had stood. The crushed mushrooms that illuminated the ruined room were beginning to fade, and shortly the room would be in total darkness. Vesha put out her hands, and more velvet darkness flowed from them. Danr remembered the way Grandmother Bund had commanded the shadows, but this was no picture show. These shadows twisted in ways that nothing should twist. They formed fractals—patterns within patterns within patterns that made Danr dizzy to see. Without thinking, he closed his right eye and looked only with his true eye.

  The shadows snapped into focus sharp as knives, hard as dark diamonds. They writhed and twisted, seeking the branches of Ashkame itself—the source of all Twisting. Awed, Danr understood what Vesha was doing. She was following the Twist. It was delicate work, like creating art with hummingbird feathers. Sweat broke out on her wide forehead, but she ignored it, concentrating on following the faintest traces of magic. The shadows turned through nothing, but also through everything, touching the entire universe for a bare moment. Then Danr saw a presence, a female figure made of golden light with threads of darkness running through it and a black hole in her chest where her heart should be. Vesha’s fractal threads touched the figure, and the figure whirled around. The threads snapped back into Vesha’s hands. She staggered a little, and Danr opened his right eye with a strange mixture of amazement and pride. This was his family. Then a bit of nervousness came to him.

  “That was Queen Gwylph, wasn’t it?” he said.