Bone War

by Steven Harper

  From around Ashkame’s trunk emerged Death, her black dress unruffled, her scarlet shawl about her shoulders, her gray hair held firmly in place with her knitting needles, her face in shadow. She was leading Aisa by the hand.

  Danr’s heart stopped. It couldn’t be. His mind rushed in tiny circles like a trapped mouse. Slowly, achingly, he got to his feet. He wanted to believe it, but he had been pulled in so many different directions he wasn’t sure he could allow himself. Aisa left Death behind and came toward him.

  “My Hamzu,” she whispered. “Oh, it is you. I thought I had lost you forever.”

  He crushed her to him then, and she was solid in his arms. No scent of the lion about her. Her dark hair was soft under his fingers and he felt her breath on his shoulder. His knees shook with the intensity of it.

  “My Aisa,” he said thickly. “How?”

  “If she was to become a Gardener,” Death said, “she had to die first. She was fated, as I said. It just happened a little faster than we would have liked.” Death chuckled. “I had to pop down and stop her from going through my door, but we’re all right now.”

  “What about our son?” Danr asked, not sure whether he was talking to Aisa or Death.

  “He is well, Hamzu.” Aisa touched her stomach. “I am well. When I … shed my body to come here, I made sure to bring him with me. How could I let him go?”

  “That one will shake the world,” said Nu.

  “Level mountains,” added Tan.

  “Metaphorically speaking,” finished Pendra weakly.

  “And Aunt Vesha?” Danr asked.

  “On the other side of my door, where she must be,” Death said. “I know you loved her, Danr, but she made her choice, and so it must be.”

  “That doesn’t make it any less sad,” Danr said.

  Death shrugged and turned to Aisa. “It is time now, my sister. Your mortal life has ended. Are you ready to take your place among the Gardeners?”

  Aisa straightened. Danr felt the tension in her, and she stepped away from his arms. Suddenly, Danr didn’t want this. He had just gotten her back, and now he was going to lose her again. Perhaps not right away, but soon enough. There was no way for them to stay together as long as he was mortal. And in a thousand years, the Tree would tip once again, and all this would start over again with someone else.

  “I am ready,” Aisa said.

  The Garden and its soft, enticing light spread before him. This place was peaceful and fine. All his life, Danr had wanted nothing more than to find someplace to farm in peace with Aisa at his side—and now their son. Such peace would never happen now.

  Or would it?

  Danr inhaled appreciatively. He felt the garden. He had come here more than once on his own. He had culled the plants, used them to find their way to Captain Greenstone in the mortal world. He had spoken to Nu by himself and finished sentences. What if … ?

  No. There were always three Gardeners. Two pivot around a third.

  Three … and one. There was always the one that changed the balance, wasn’t there? Tikk who had tricked his way into the gods. Death, who trucked with the Fates.

  As Aisa stepped forward, Pendra glided weakly toward her and reached out her bleeding hands. Danr closed his right eye, and his true eye saw that Pendra had almost nothing left. Just a spark of power she would give to Aisa, who would then take the sickle and her place. Aisa took a deep breath, then glanced over her shoulder.

  Three … and one.

  His true eye told him that she was thinking the same thing. Pendra reached for Aisa’s hand, and Aisa took it. At the last moment, Danr lunged forward and grabbed Pendra’s other hand and took Aisa’s free one.

  The spark thundered into him, into both of them, into all three of them: Danr, Aisa, their son. Three … and one.

  Danr inhaled an entire universe. Wonder exploded through him. Clouds of gas whirled around a center and blazed into life. Countless trillions of planets spun lazily around these warm, life-giving stars, and on those planets, tiny beings turned their faces to the light. Awed, Danr touched all of them at once. He was all of them. When one died, the death sent tremors through all the others, and when a new one was born, the entire cosmos shouted with delight. Danr touched everything, and everything touched him. Every atom, every particle, every speck streamed through him and through Aisa. He felt her there, too. And also Nu and Tan.

  Danr backed away, saw systems instead of stars, galaxies instead of systems, a universe instead of galaxies, and that was when he saw Ashkame, drilling down and growing up through the Nine Realms. The leaves were planets, the branches were stars, and the trunk was galaxies. Ashkame twisted the eye, making itself everywhere and nowhere all at once. Scattered about the branches, trunk, and roots were the Nine Gods. Olar, Grick, and Rolk looked down from the branches. Urko, Bosha, and the twins Fell and Belinna scratched around the trunk. Vik, Halza, and Kalina looked up from the roots. Tikk scuttled around where he pleased. Below the bottom was Nu with her bag of seeds. Above the top was Tan, with her hoe. In the center, becoming a pivot, was Aisa with a new silver sickle. The Tree was already trying to tip, just a bit, an atom’s width, the amount that would take a thousand years to send the great Tree falling over and revolving once around the center, wiping stars and shaking planets. But now Danr stood next to Aisa, simultaneously seeing himself and being himself. The Tree tried to tip that tiny bit, but nothing could pivot with two centers. Four in a line became firm. The Tree would never tip again.

  Galaxies, systems, and worlds rushed past Danr and he was standing in the Garden again, even though he was also elsewhere. Aisa stood next to him, along with Nu, Tan, and Death. Pendra was gone.

  “So now we have four,” Death observed. “How delicious.”

  “We wondered,” said Nu.

  “We considered,” said Tan.

  “We won’t,” interrupted Danr, “need to talk this way.”

  “New Gardeners always say that.” Nu slung her seed bag over her shoulder. “But after five or six hundred years, it happens. You start talking that way, and another two hundred later, you think that way.”

  “I won’t,” said Danr.

  “They all say that,” agreed Tan.

  “I did,” said Nu.

  “Oh dear,” murmured Aisa.

  “I must be getting back to my door,” put in Death. “My knitting won’t ravel itself. I look forward to trading barbs with you, Aisa.”

  “We will see,” said Aisa.

  “And you, Danr,” said Death. “Now that you’re going to be around for a while, I can tell you something.”

  He looked at her warily. “What’s that?”

  “Do you remember that day we first met, all the way back when you were a sixteen-year-old boy, still squalling like a baby troll brought into daylight?”

  “I’ll never forget it,” he said. “You told me not to kneel.”

  “I also said if you were very brave, you could kiss my cheek.” She tapped it. “And you did. Danr, my dear, I have met so many people that not even Nu and Tan here can count them. I made the same offer to any number of them, and do you know how many took me up on it?”

  “No,” Danr said truthfully.

  “None,” Death sniffed. “Not one of them dared give Auntie Death a kiss. You were the first. Right then you became my favorite. Right then.”

  “Oh,” said Danr, not sure what to think of that.

  “A dubious distinction,” said Aisa.

  “Now, that is why I’m glad you got the position instead of Gwylph, Aisa,” said Death. “Stuffy as a used handkerchief, that one. You, on the other hand, will be fun.”

  “Gwylph!” Danr said. “The battle! Talfi! Ranadar! Kalessa! We need to find out what happened to them!”

  But even as he formed the thoughts and the words, knowledge flooded his mind. He stretched out his hands and found the Garden plants. Ranadar—a twisting ivy that reached far from its roots to twine around the sturdy, ageless bristlecone pine that was Talfi.
Kalessa—a fierce and thorny thistle that was leaning toward an odd and long piece of wormwood. They were all alive and well. He sighed with relief.

  “They have separated,” Aisa said. “How much time has passed since we left?”

  “That is one problem with interacting with mortals,” said Tan. “Their lives are so short, and they move so quickly. It’s why we stay so busy.”

  “So occupied,” said Nu.

  “Can’t we see them?” Danr said plaintively.

  “You don’t need anyone’s permission,” Death said. “Do whatever you like.” And she was gone.

  “But don’t be long,” said Nu, belying Death’s words. “We have gardening to do.”

  “Much,” agreed Tan.

  Twisting was so simple Danr couldn’t imagine why he’d been unable to do it before. He and Aisa slid with ease between the roots and branches of Ashkame until they landed directly in front of a group of orcish tents in Xaron. Kalessa, her mother, Xanda, and a craggy-faced man Danr didn’t recognize were looking out over a pitted area of ground. Danr thought a moment and the knowledge he needed came to him. The pitted area was a new breeding ground for wyrms, and the man was Grandfather Wyrm in his human form. That last caught Danr truly by surprise.

  “Sister!” Aisa shouted, and ran to Kalessa. With a startled yell, Kalessa embraced Aisa and then Danr. A great deal of chatter followed, with Kalessa rocked back on her heels.

  “So,” she said, “my blood sister is one of the Fates. And pregnant! The universe literally trembles.”

  “But what has happened to you?” Aisa asked. “How long has it been?”

  “You do not know?” Kalessa countered. “That seems odd for a … goddess.”

  “We’re still learning our way around,” Danr said.

  “Everyone calls it the War of the Four Queens,” Kalessa said. “That was four months ago. Can you not see that it is autumn? The grass is turning brown. The orcs are trying to recover. So many died in the war that we have combined Nests so we have six instead of eight, but in time I am sure we will increase our numbers.”

  “Grandfather Wyrm is teaching us much about shape magic and how to raise better wyrms,” Xanda put in. “He and my daughter have become quite close. Is that not delightful news?”

  “Mother,” Kalessa warned.

  “Since you are in charge of such things, Lady Aisa,” Xanda continued, ignoring her, “perhaps you could arrange for something to happen? Kalessa and Grandfather Wyrm would make a fine royal match.”

  “Hmm,” said Aisa.

  “Do not dare!” Kalessa said.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Danr laughed, putting up his hands. Then he leaned in with mischievous confidentially. “But I will tell you, Lady Xanda, that their plants already grow very close in the Garden.”

  Xanda clapped her hands. “I knew it! I knew she would find—”

  “Mother!” Kalessa warned again.

  “We will return,” Aisa said, “but we want to see what has happened to Ranadar and Talfi.”

  “Encountering any number of difficulties, I am sure,” Kalessa said.

  *

  They found Ranadar and Talfi in a council that was arguing in the shade of an oak tree at sunset. Ranadar sat on the ground at the head of the group. A silver crown shone in his deep red hair. Talfi, richly dressed in scarlet embroidered with gold, sat next to him. Two elves, one of whom had only one hand, were there as well, along with three humans who, upon closer inspection, turned out to be two humans and a shape-shifted mermaid. Sprites hovered overhead, and fairies scuttled in a circle around them. And bundled up in a heavy cloak against even the weak, fading sun was the great heavy form of a troll. With a start, Danr recognized him.

  “Torth!” Danr said as he and Aisa stepped out of the Twist. “Vik’s balls, what are you doing in Alfhame?”

  The shouting that had been going up around the circle instantly died. It was followed by a mad fumble for weapons—which no one had—and a general chaotic uproar. Danr held up his hands.

  “Silence!” he bellowed.

  The grass beneath the tree flattened for twenty feet in all directions, and the surrounding trees of the Alfhame forest trembled. Everyone froze.

  “I did not know we could do that,” Aisa murmured. “We must experiment further.”

  “We aren’t here to hurt anyone,” Danr said. “Please. We just came by to see our friends.”

  “Danr! Aisa!” Ranadar finally gasped out. He bolted to his feet and ran to embrace both of them. Talfi, also shouting their names, joined him. Danr hauled both of them and Aisa off their feet with a great laugh. He had thought he would never laugh with his friends again, and it felt astounding.

  “Brother,” said Torth. “Where did you come from?”

  Danr embraced him as well. “I could ask you the same question.”

  “I am forging a new alliance with the Kin and even the Stane.” Ranadar looked pointedly at one of the elves and the sprites who bobbed overhead. “The world has changed and we need to change with it.”

  “Your hold on the throne is touchy, Your Highness,” said the two-handed elf. “Not everyone will follow your—”

  “He is the son of the former king and queen,” interrupted the one-handed elf. “If he wants to ally with even the Stane, we will do so!”

  “Even the Stane?” retorted Torth.

  “Thank you for your support, Lady Sharyl,” said Ranadar. “We recognize it will not be easy to—”

  “Not easy?” interrupted the other elf. “Impossible! The filthy Stane cannot be trusted to—”

  “Who is filthy?” Torth snapped. “You invited me here to talk about terms, not insult me. My father, Kech, is king under the mountain, and you flimsy Fae will remember that.”

  “We were not so flimsy at the War of the Four Queens,” retorted the elf. “You Stane ran like cowards for your stinking cave.”

  Danr slammed his fist down in the center of the circle. The boom silenced the circle. Danr drew himself up. “Look at who I am. Mortals,” he added for effect.

  Everyone, including Ranadar and Talfi, looked at him. Danr let out a breath of power from the Garden. Green light, pure and powerful, gushed up to the sky and down to the center of the world. It poured through him and out of him. The circle of people dropped to their knees.

  “I Am Power,” Danr boomed. “I Am Life. I Am Fate. And You Will—”

  “Hamzu,” Aisa interrupted.

  Danr looked around. Everyone had stopped moving. Even the column of light he was standing in had frozen. Only Aisa seemed unaffected. Confused, he stepped out of the light and crossed to her.

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  “I think it is a form of Twisting,” she said. “I will show you later. But for now, I do not think we are supposed to do such things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that we are … well, we are gods. And we are not supposed to tell people what to do.”

  “Why not?” Danr folded his arms. “We’re fate. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

  Aisa shook her head. “We tend the Garden, but in the end, it grows the way it wants. If we tell everyone what to do all the time, no one will do anything but what we say. Life will grow stale. The Tree will wither and die.”

  “But—”

  “The Gardeners didn’t force us to do anything,” Aisa pointed out. “We chose. Always. And they must choose as well.”

  Danr started to object, then stopped himself. He remembered how he’d felt when Death called on him to go places he didn’t want to go, pushed him into fighting monsters he didn’t want to fight. Was this any different?

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll try something else.”

  “Go,” she said.

  He stepped back into the column of light, and time moved again. The light blazed and the people cowered. He gave himself a fraction of a moment to think about how incredible it was, going from the half-blood son of a thrall to … a god. But onl
y a fraction of a moment. He had already learned that moments were different for mortals.

  Danr clapped his hands and the light vanished. In a more reasonable tone, he said, “I would never tell you what to do. You are mortals and must choose your own way. But I’ve seen the long row, and it would be … pleasing to me if you would choose a certain way. The Nine Races used to be one people, you know. There’s no reason they can’t be again. Maybe you could … choose to think about that.”

  He held out a hand to Aisa, who joined him in the circle, and he winked at Talfi, who was grinning widely at him. The Twist opened before them. Just before they stepped through, Aisa said, “And if you were thinking of making life difficult for Ranadar because he loves Talfi, think again. Love is never a bad choice.”

  They stepped through the Twist and appeared in the Garden once again.

  “What was that last bit for?” Danr asked.

  “Just another form of peace.” Aisa straightened her dress. “Our first acts as gods. I think it went rather well.”

  He touched her belly with a gentle hand and kissed her. “Will this be our second?”

  “And our third,” she replied with a smile. When they separated, she was holding a sickle. “Hmm. It would seem the Garden awaits.” She cocked her head. “So far, among the Fates, we have seeds, a hoe, and a sickle. What will your tool be, my husband?”

  It was the first time she had called him that, and it took him a little aback. “We haven’t officially been married.”

  She laughed, a light, free sound that carried from one end of the Garden to the other and lifted spirits all across the Nine Worlds. “There is no higher authority in the universe than ourselves, my strong one. But still, you are correct. So.” She took his hand in hers. “Danr, my Hamzu, the strong one, from the day I met you, I knew you were special. My heart felt safe and loved when I was with you, even if I could not immediately admit it to myself. And when I could at last admit it to myself”—her voice broke—“I knew there was no one else I could ever trust with my life and my love. You are my strength. You are my life. You are my world. I take your hand in marriage.”

  Danr felt himself fill like a bowl with water and gold. “Aisa, words aren’t my way. I never know how to show what’s in my heart. I can only say that I have always loved you. Before I knew your face, I knew what was in your heart, and I loved you. I cannot imagine life without you, and”—now his voice grew thick—“and you know that even now I have to tell the truth. I love you forever, and I take your hand in marriage.”