Iron Axe (27 page)

“So you love him,” Old Aunt said one night after the feather beds were put away. Aisa had declared Kalessa's ribs healed, and the young woman had spent the day in a whirlwind of activity: hauling buckets, bringing wood, and toting feather beds. Even housework, she declared, was better than sitting still.

“Missing is not the same as loving,” Aisa said tartly. “It's easy to miss someone. It happens all the time.”

“Because people leave you all the time.” Old Aunt lifted a coal to her pipe, lit it, and tossed the coal back into the fire, a trick that never ceased to amaze Aisa. “It's difficult to get past people who leave you—or who shove you out the door.”

“Why?” Aisa asked. “You are not planning to—”

For a third time, the door smashed open. Aisa scrambled to her feet, heart in the back of her throat. How many times would Old Aunt put her and Kalessa through this?

Kalessa had learned from the previous visitor and always kept her sword close at hand. She leaped in front of Aisa, blade at the ready. “Come on!” she snarled. “I am for you!”

But the thing that muscled through the door made even Kalessa gasp and take a step back. It had eight legs sticking out from a single trunk of pink and brown flesh that looked melted together from too many other bodies. Eight arms stuck out in all directions, half of them holding swords or knives.
Atop this monstrosity perched four heads with dreadful, wild eyes and tangled dark hair. With a cold chill, Aisa recognized her family—her two brothers, Fayyad and Nasim, her father, Bahir, and her mother, Durrah. The monster that was her family rushed at Aisa, snapping and snarling.

“You failed in your duty as a sister!” Fayyad growled.

“You showed loose and wanton morals!” Nasim howled.

“You failed to stop me from gambling!” Father groaned. “It was your fault I had to sell you!”

“You let me die,” Mother whispered, and that pierced Aisa's heart with an arrow of stone. She remembered desperately searching for herbs and rendering tinctures, listening to conflicting advice from male doctors who refused to enter a woman's sickroom, all while cooking and cleaning and sweeping for two brothers who wouldn't touch women's work and a father who gambled away so much money they couldn't afford to hire any help. And more than once, Mother begged for something that would end her pain, and Aisa wished she had the courage to give it to her. But in the end, Mother had slid slowly into death with Aisa helpless at her side. All the guilt she had been suppressing for the last eight years crushed her down, paralyzed her while the monster family stormed across the kitchen toward her.

For the third time, Kalessa leaped in front of her, sword out. She swiped at the monster, and even though Aisa knew this wasn't really her family, she wanted to shout at Kalessa to leave them alone, not to hurt them. But the words wouldn't come.

Kalessa slashed at the creature and opened a gash on its trunk. “Ha!” she shouted. “I have you—”

The creature flicked Kalessa aside with one arm. She flew across the room, crashed against one wall, and slid to the floor unconscious.

“You're a failure!” the creature roared in one voice. “A bad daughter! Bad sister!”

Kalessa, Aisa's defender, was gone. Old Aunt, meanwhile, sat on the stool, smoking her pipe and scratching at the hearth with that damn stick. Fear and loathing pulsing with her heart, Aisa spun and snatched the stick from her. She faced the monster that was her family, and the hatred grew. They had betrayed her, hurt her, and now they dared to call her names? She stood straight.

“Filth!” she shouted. “Stay back!”

But the monster lunged at her. The familiar but twisted features of her family leered down at her as they came. She raised Old Aunt's stout stick at them like a club. At Fayyad, who always lifted her so she could pick the juiciest pears from the tree behind the house. At Nasim, who conspired with her to stay up late and spy on the grown-ups during Rolk's feast. At Father, who took her on his shoulders to the market and let her listen to the men while they bargained. And at Mother, who made colored eggshell mosaics with her every spring until she became too weak to leave her bed.

Aisa faltered. Yes, they had betrayed her. They had also loved her. Her father couldn't stay away from the dice any more than her mother could force herself to stay healthy. Her brothers had been trapped by a culture that decided men didn't help in the house. The monster rushed toward her with its monstrous form and familiar eyes. Nothing excused what they had done. But none of it meant they hadn't loved her. And pain was not solved with more pain.

Aisa lowered the stick. In one smooth motion, she pulled her scarf off her hair and stood before them as she had before the slavers took her. “I love you.”

The monster halted only half a step away, loomed over her. All four heads breathed warm, sour breath down on her
face. Aisa's mouth was dry with near panic, but she forced herself to hold her ground. “Nasim, Fayyad, Mother, Father. You are my family, and I love you.”

“You are a—” Fayyad began.

“Shh!” Aisa reached up and put a trembling hand over his mouth. His lips were rubbery. “You caused me pain. I hated you for it. Part of me still does. But you are my brothers and my parents, and I still remember the good things, too.”

“You are—” Mother began.

“No,” Aisa said gently. “I never was. No one is a saint, and no one is a monster. We are a mix of both.”

“You—” Father began.

“I will no longer carry your pain,” Aisa said with tears in her eyes. “I forgive you. All of you. Go now.”

The monster stared at her. After a long moment, it turned and slunk toward the door. Aisa stood unflinching behind it, feeling tall and powerful with the stout stick at her side. Old Aunt puffed on her pipe at the fire. At the door, the monster turned.

“You were always a good sister,” Fayyad said.

“We are proud of you always,” Nasim said.

“I was wrong, and I am sorry you suffered for my weakness,” Father said.

“No one else could take better care of me,” Mother whispered. “You were the best daughter anyone could want.”

Tears of relief and joy ran down Aisa's cheeks as the monster slipped out the door and disappeared. Aisa sank down on a bench, overwhelmed at the power of this day. A great weight lifted from her back. She felt strong and weak, powerful and meek, all at once. The stick lay across her knees.

“Yes,” said Old Aunt from the fire. “Very good, my daughter.”

A groan came from the corner. Aisa gasped. “Kalessa!”

Kalessa was already staggering to her feet by the time
Aisa got to her. She seemed unhurt except for a bump on her head. “I was of little help,” she complained. “The monster still attacked.”

“Your job as the defender,” said Old Aunt, “was to do what needed doing. In this last case, you needed to stand aside. Now I'm sad.”

“Sad?” Kalessa said, clearly not sure if she should be mollified or insulted.

“You have faced all the enemies you need to face,” Old Aunt said. “It is time for you to leave, and I'm sad.”

“Leave?” Aisa put a hand to her mouth. The entire idea seemed strange. She had been living here for so long, the rest of the world had all but faded away. Abrupt, new questions crowded her mind, questions she had been meaning to ask but hadn't done so because she'd been too tired or too busy or too occupied talking about herself.

And there was one enemy she hadn't faced yet. When she thought of it, the hunger, which rumbled quietly in the back of her head, came to greater life, and the desire for her former master's touch swept over her so hard she swayed.

“Old Aunt,” she began, “what about—”

She touched Aisa's cheek and withdrew. “You have earned your face, child. You have the strength to face the world on your own.”

“My . . . face?” Aisa put a hand to her bare cheek and thought of mermaids.

With a creaking of joints, Old Aunt stood up. “But first, you must have the reward I promised.”

“Reward,” Aisa repeated stupidly, trying to push the hunger aside. It was all the harder because she hadn't realized how much she had been hoping until now that Old Aunt would take the hunger away.

“Reward. When you arrived, you pointed out that you had met many powerful beings—three giants, Death, a trollwife,
and me—and that they were all women. You said that we women are doing a terrible job of controlling everything if we allow the men to kill and rape and steal and do anything else they please. I also said that your question told me much and that I would answer it for you.”

“Oh.” Aisa had all but forgotten. “I see. What's the answer, then?”

“I think you know already,” Old Aunt said in that maddeningly affable tone. “Tell me.”

Aisa forced herself to think through the hunger. She thought about the three creatures who had come for her, all of them pieces of her own thinking, all of them people who had hurt her, all of them men—except for the piece that had been Mother. Why was Mother there? She was a woman. But Mother hadn't hurt her on purpose, like the others. The others had chosen. It was about choice, wasn't it? And what had Old Aunt said about those who got into Valorhame?

“The women I met don't run the world,” Aisa said slowly. “But the men don't, either. Everyone makes their own choices. We get into Valorhame by our own choices. When men do dreadful things, it is through choice, not because fate forces them. We all are people, not monsters, and we tip the Tree with our own choices.”

“Very good.” Old Aunt nodded. “Oh, the Nine and the Fates and a few other entities may throw a few . . . suggestions your way, but in the end you have to decide what to do. You decided to help the elven child live, and you ended up here as a result. You decided to forgive your family, and we're having this discussion as a result. I truly had no idea how this would come out when you walked through my front door. By men's choices, you were hurt. By your own choices, you became strong again.”

And Aisa felt a small tremor beneath her shoes. Kalessa glanced sharply about.

“The Tree tips,” Old Aunt said. “We must move along. First to you, my dear little orc. You must choose.”

“Choose what?” Kalessa asked.

In response, Old Aunt gestured with her pipe. On the walls blazed a dazzling treasure—swords of all sizes, shields of all shapes, suits of armor, ornate jewelry boxes, wands with runes of silver and gold etched into them.

“You may choose one object from my house,” Old Aunt said. “Anything you like.”

Aisa couldn't imagine how anyone could choose. Everywhere she looked, more and more sights awed her senses. She realized that each incredible, impossible object had been there from the beginning, but she had somehow failed to notice them. It was like looking at a picture of a tree and suddenly realizing it was a woman's face, and had been all along. Kalessa's mouth fell open in astonishment. She wandered among the treasures, reaching out to touch this sword or that lance, but not quite doing so.

“Come on, come on,” Old Aunt said. “Before you're gray.”

“Great lady!” Kalessa gasped. “I am not worthy of any of it.”

“Don't insult me,” Old Aunt said peevishly. “Choose.”

Abashed, Kalessa looked at a long sword with a green emerald set in the hilt. Gold runes marched up the blade. She ran her hand along the iron, then set her mouth.

“I have done little here, and my honor will not allow me to take such a weapon.” She strode to the kitchen table and snatched up a knife. It was the one she had stabbed Hamzu with. “This is more appropriate. I have used it, and it should be mine.”

“Are you sure?” asked Old Aunt archly. “The choice, once made, cannot be unmade.”

Kalessa slipped the knife into her belt. “I thank you.”

“Very well. Now you, girl.”

“Me?” Aisa clutched the stick to her chest, taken aback. “I have had my reward. You answered my question. That was our bargain.”

“No.
You
answered your question, not I.” Old Aunt gave her a small grin. “Therefore your reward is still forthcoming. Choose. Don't be shy.”

Aisa glanced at the shining treasure. Any one object would make her a wealthy woman, or a woman of great power. But that was assuming she could even figure out how to sell a singular object, or wield its magic. And in any case, Old Aunt had already given her something even more powerful than treasure—her choices. Nothing that hung on the walls came close to being that important. Aisa turned her back on it all and looked at Old Aunt's lined face and her wild white hair. A rush of affection swept over her. This was a woman of true power and wisdom. Her eye went down to the old, stout stick, the one Old Aunt used to poke the fire with every day, the one Aisa now gripped in her own hands, the one Aisa had held to face her family. It was an ordinary chunk of wood, worn smooth with use, as thick as Aisa's wrist and as long as her arm. One end was black with ash.

Aisa said suddenly, “I want your stick.”

Old Aunt pursed her lips with surprise. “My stick?”

“Yes. It will remind me of you and all that you gave me when I stir my own fire every day.”

“But it's worth nothing, child.”

“To me,” Aisa said firmly, “it is worth everything.”

Old Aunt shrugged with shoulders like stone. “You'll find your things by the door, then. Mind the Twist when you leave.” And she stumped out of the kitchen. The treasure faded away and vanished, though it was also somehow still hanging on the walls.

“That is all?” Kalessa said.

“It would appear.” Aisa looked about the kind kitchen one more time. “We should go. Everyone must be worried to death.”

They opened the door, crossed the threshold, and felt the Twist take
them.