Bone War (35 page)

“Indeed not,” Ranadar agreed.

“Why did the merfolk come?” Talfi said. “I thought they were angry with Aisa.”

“Imeld was,” Kalessa said. “But she changed her mind after Grandfather Wyrm spoke with her. Or that is what she tells me. It takes strength to admit when you are wrong, and I commended her for that.”

“You will make a fine queen, Kalessa,” Ranadar said. “I want to be the first to congratulate you and your queen
mother on your win today, and I hope our people can reconcile and forge an alliance in the future.”

“Why are you talking like a ruler?” Kalessa seemed to truly see him for the first time. “You are injured! I will fetch a healer. The merfolk are very skilled.”

A rumble shuddered the air. Everyone turned their eyes toward the source of the sound. “What now?” Talfi groaned.

Some distance away, Grandfather Wyrm was shuddering. He quivered and shivered and shook. The orcs and wyrms that surrounded him hurried away in consternation as his shape . . . changed. He shrank and twisted and dwindled away. There was a final
whump
of inrushing air that blasted Talfi's hair. In Grandfather Wyrm's place stood a tall man, naked, with a craggy face and muscles sculpted like a statue's. His skin had the faintest hint of green to it, and his night black hair hung nearly to his waist.

“The Nine,” Kalessa murmured.

“
That's
what Grandfather Wyrm looks like as a human?” Talfi said.

“What were you expecting?” Ranadar said.

“I don't know. Something more . . . grandfathery.” Talfi sniffed. “Wow.”

“You,” Kalessa said, “already have a mate. The Nine, Ten, and Eleven! He is coming this way! Where is Aisa? And Danr? I do not see them.”

The abrupt change in subject caught Talfi off guard. He thought back. So much had happened so quickly. The last he or any of the golems had seen, Danr had been standing over a dead lion near the giant tree. Had Aisa changed into a lion? She couldn't be dead. Not now. Not after all this. He needed a few minutes to recover, a few minutes of normalcy to gather his wits.

“I'm . . . not sure where they are,” he temporized. “I lost track during the fighting, and then Pendra came and everything happened so fast.”

Grandfather Wyrm strode up, still naked but obviously
unbothered by the fact. Talfi found it hard to find a place to look, so he settled on staring at the man's eyes. They were a deep, compelling green, greener than Ranadar's. He didn't look older than thirty-five, and every muscle moved like oiled butter under his skin. Several orcs followed him, both fascinated and uncertain.

“Good evening, yes,” he said in the voice Talfi knew so well. “I recognize you, young Talfi, though I suppose by the time one reaches our age, a few years difference in age makes little matter, yes.”

Talfi remembered that Grandfather Wyrm had been a mortal man on the day of the Sundering, when Talfi had been seventeen. Talfi might look half Grandfather Wyrm's age, but they were essentially the same age.

“It is good to come out from under the ocean after all this time, yes,” Grandfather Wyrm continued. “And it is good to see the Kin and the other races coming together. Perhaps this will help things along.”

He knelt and removed Talfi's bloody shirt from Ranadar's wound. Ranadar gasped. A golden light flared under Grandfather Wyrm's palm. When he pulled it away, the wound was gone.

“Simple shape magic that has been forgotten,” Grandfather Wyrm said. “Perhaps it is time to remember it, yes.”

“Thank you, Great One,” Ranadar said in obvious relief, and Talfi felt the absence of the pain himself.

“And who is this powerful woman?” Grandfather Wyrm asked, rising to take Kalessa's hand. “Such power and grace and beauty on the battlefield, I have never seen, yes.”

“Kalessa, daughter of Xanda, heir to the First Nest,” Kalessa said. “And the orc who wonders where her sister and good friend have gone to. We must find them.”

“Aisa's dead, isn't she?” Talfi said. The grief he had been holding back hit him then. His mouth filled with sand, and tears pricked the backs of his eyes. “She changed into a lion to save Danr, and she . . . died. But where did she go? Where did Danr go?”

“Dead?” Kalessa rounded on him. “No! My sister walks with gods! She cannot be dead. She
will
not be dead! I will not believe it until I have seen her body. And where is Danr? He would never abandon us.”

“That's true.” Talfi wiped at his eyes. “But where did they go?”

T
he Garden stretched away in all directions but behind, where rose the tall, solid trunk of Ashkame. The rotting smell was gone, replaced by the pleasant smell of herbs and flowers and fresh green leaves. Everywhere Danr looked, the plants were healing. They stood straighter, reached up higher. The rot was gone. Even the tilted ground had straightened, allowing him to stand upright.

But he didn't want to stand. Sorrow and pain forced him to the newly solid earth. He knelt next to Aisa's lioness body, stroking her cold fur and the stiffening muscles beneath. The tree had exploded, filling his eyes with painful white light, and when his vision had cleared, he and Aisa—her body—were here in the Garden. Danr didn't know or care how it happened, no, he didn't. All that mattered was that he would never hear Aisa's voice, never touch her skin, never see her face.

And what about their son? He was dead, too, before he had even lived. Every thought and dream Danr had enjoyed about raising a boy—gone in an instant. The loss was too great. He would never move, never live, never exist again. He buried his face in her unmoving side and wept.

A gentle hand touched his shoulder. He looked up and found himself surrounded by the Gardeners. Nu wore her
spring green cloak and carried a bulging bag of seeds. Tan's cloak was sleek and summer brown, and the sturdy hoe over her shoulder looked sharp and ready. Pendra, however, was sickly and fading. Her sickle was pitted and rusty. Danr could see the plants right through her. Blood trailed from her wrists, watering the ground beneath.

“The Tree has tipped,” said Nu.

“Tilted,” said Tan.

“Turned over,” whispered Pendra, and her voice was nothing but a leaf on the breeze. “It is finished.”

Black anger filled Danr now. “You let Aisa die!” he raged. “She was supposed to save you. She was supposed to keep the Tree from tipping ever again! She was supposed to have our child!” His throat was so heavy he could barely speak. “And now she's dead.”

“It is how things were,” said Nu.

“How things are,” said Tan.

“How they must be,” finished Pendra. “There is no other way, dear, dear Danr.”

“I don't understand.” Danr pushed salt water off his face with the back of one hand. “She's dead, and now you don't have anyone to replace you. And I don't have anyone at all.”

“Now, Danr,” said a new voice, “you should know better than that.”

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.