The Dread Hammer (10 page)

Takis was not pleased, not at all pleased, with the news Seök had brought. She slipped away while the Trenchant thanked the former soldier, and settled a reward on him. Certainly he deserved a reward! Seök had conducted himself with wisdom and bravery and all the loyalty that was to be expected of a Koráyos soldier, but Takis would have been far happier if no word of her brother ever came to Samerhen while the Trenchant was alive.

No good could come of this news. Of that she was sure.

Her twin sister, Tayval, was waiting for her in the apartment they shared upstairs. “Can you sense him?” Takis demanded, before the door had even closed behind her.

Tayval was sitting cross-legged on the window seat, her eyes half-closed, the distant, sheep-grazed slope of Everwatch Ridge rising green behind her. She didn’t answer her sister—not aloud—but her familiar voice spoke within Takis’ thoughts.
I can sense him faintly as I always do, enough to know he lives. More than that I can’t say.

Though Takis and Tayval were twins, they were not alike. Tayval shared her sister’s black hair and green eyes, but she was a willowy creature, slight and slender and easily forgotten by most people who encountered her. Silence was her veil. Not a word had ever passed her lips and only rarely did she show joy or anger, and never fear. Though Tayval had some skill in the arts of war, and though she was as willing as Takis to take a man into her bed, her physical reflection was only a fraction of a being whose greater part lived among the weft and warp of the world-beneath. Takis was the face of Koráy, but Tayval was her power.

“Why did Smoke do it, Tayval? Why did he take such a chance, and let himself be seen? Because the risk was worth it to him, I know, but why?”

Dehan comes
, Tayval warned. She was up at once, hurrying past Takis to open the door.

Takis took possession of her seat at the window. She watched Tayval greet their father, trading a kiss and a smile. Affection shone in Dehan’s eyes. Takis knew it was real. He was Bidden, and so his heart was bound by more than the natural love of a parent for a child. Koráy had set this spell on all their kind, so that a parent was tied to a child by an abiding love, and the child in turn was bound to the parent. Takis and Tayval were conceived together and Dehan loved them both madly; but when Smoke came, they all learned that the spell did not reach past the first conception.

Turning his attention from Tayval, Dehan assumed a wounded air. “I trust you in all things, Takis, except when it comes to Smoke. How much did you already know?”

She met his questioning gaze with a scowl. “I knew he was alive. You knew it too. Seök’s report confirms it, but this isn’t news.”

“You don’t want to find him!”

“No, my father, I don’t want
you
to find him.”

“Takis, you waste your affection on him! I’ve begun to wonder if the reason you haven’t conceived a child is because you’ve already made my demon son your own!”

Takis was on her feet in an instant, her own temper a match for the Trenchant’s. “If he’s a demon it was you who made him that way! There was no harm in him when he was my child.”

“That isn’t true. If anyone had ever raised a fist to you, Smoke would have struck them down, even when he was a tiny child. Death is his nature. Everyone who encounters him sees it at once. Do you know the name they’ve given him in the south?”

Takis turned away in disgust. “I’ve heard it.”

“
Dismay
. That’s the name your beloved brother has made for himself! The desperate call on him, praying to him to wreck havoc in their name.”

“Is it any wonder he fled? I wouldn’t stay, if I heard such prayers!”

“
You
would stay. You were born for a purpose, my beloved Takis.” He turned to Tayval, who had followed this argument with a disinterested gaze. “And you as well, my precious Tayval. I know you both would die before you abandoned the Puzzle Lands or allowed the Koráyos people to fall to the Lutawan Kingdom. But your brother doesn’t serve the Koráyos and he isn’t bound by any love for the Puzzle Lands. He’s a weapon for our use, nothing more.”

“I think you’re right,” Takis said, speaking slowly as she chased down a flurry of new thoughts. “Smoke’s purpose is not the same as ours. It’s almost as if some meddling demon found him in the womb and twined its spirit around his own, because he is both more and less than we are.”

She had turned away, lost in thought, but Tayval’s voice recalled her.
You’ve startled him. You’ve struck close to home . . . though he doesn’t want you to see it.

Takis turned. Dehan had gone to sit in an armchair. She drew near and glared down at him. “What is it that you know?”

Dehan cupped his chin, considering the question. “We are the Bidden. We were bidden to leave the Wild Wood and become a reflection of the people. And so we have, for five generations, but Smoke is flawed. The Wild Wood is stronger in him. Alone among us he runs the threads, and his eyes . . .”

Takis sighed. “They glitter like the eyes of the Hauntén.”

Dehan’s voice hardened. “Where is he Takis? If you know, you must tell me.”

She shook her head. “You know it as well as me. He’s hidden himself in the Wild Wood . . . but perhaps he hasn’t gone there because of this feud with you. Perhaps it’s because the Wild Wood has called him home. If you must find him, search for him there.”

“I come to you for help, and this is all you tell me? To seek for him in a wood without end? I could spend a life searching and never find him there!”

“Perhaps,” Takis mused, “he’s not the one you should be searching for?”

Tayval shot her a startled look; Takis was suddenly awash in confusion. Why had she said those words aloud? She hadn’t meant to. She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “My loyalties are divided.”

Dehan sighed. “They’re not. In the end you’ll always do what’s needed to protect the Puzzle Lands.” He stood up and walked to the window, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed at the steep green slope of Everwatch Ridge.

Takis watched him, holding her breath, not wanting him to puzzle it out, but it was a vain hope. She’d already given him the key.

“So if Smoke is not alone,” he mused, “whose company would he risk?” He chuckled softly. “I was wrong before. Smoke
is
a vain rooster, but he’s not such a fool that he would risk buying pretty silks for himself . . . but for the pleasure of another . . . ?”

Takis didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. Dehan had already untangled all her thoughts.

But then he went farther. “What then of the wise woman? What is the meaning in it? Smoke wouldn’t need such as her. He knows the treasures of the Wild Wood. Her herbals would have no value to him, and he would care nothing for her healing skills—he who would never offer solace to a wounded enemy.”

Only as he spoke did Takis comprehend the last piece of the puzzle. “A wise woman also serves as midwife,” she whispered. Shock ran through her as she said the words. Despair. Jealousy. She ducked her head to hide a startling rush of unaccustomed tears.

Next she knew, Dehan’s arms were around her and she was weeping like a child against his chest, not just for the bitter irony that fate had given Smoke a child while leaving her barren, but for the sheer painlessness of all her affairs, each one leading to nothing, except the last one which had left her heart raw for no reason she could explain.

Damn you, Nedgalvin!

“It should have been you,” Dehan murmured to her. “It should have been you who was blessed with a child.”

The storm didn’t last. After a minute she was calm again. She stood back and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, my father. It was not meant to be.”

Dehan nodded. Then they both turned to Tayval.

She still stood near the door as she had since Dehan had come into the room, but Takis could see that Tayval wasn’t really there. Her eyes were half-closed and empty, as if her soul had stepped away.

Takis caught Dehan’s elbow before he could disturb her. “She’s listening.”

“What can she hear?”

“Perhaps the heartbeat of a mother and child, lost somewhere in the Wild Wood?”

“It’s likely the child isn’t born yet.”

“Nevertheless, its heart is beating.”

Dehan nodded. “Let it be done then.” He started to leave.

Takis stopped him with a word. “Dehan.”

She had fully recovered herself. Her hurt was put away. She was descendant of Koráy, first warrior of the Bidden, and she spoke now with raw truth. “I’m not doing this for you.”

Dehan flinched, but he said nothing.

“I love my brother, and I don’t begrudge him his freedom or his fate, but his child belongs to the Koráyos people.”

The Trenchant nodded. “Then we are agreed.”

~

H
eavy threads make up the weft and warp of the world, but between them run the fine and ever-changing threads we grow between ourselves. Do these seem fragile? They’re not.

Ketty screamed when Smoke walked in the door.

Dusk had fallen, and though it was dim within the cottage, there was light enough from the fire to gleam against the fresh bloodstains on his chest.

“You are wounded!” Ketty cried, rushing to him.

“No.” He turned aside so she wouldn’t be touched by the midwife’s blood, still fresh, wet, and glimmering. He had been hours on the threads, coming home, but nothing of himself ever aged or changed during that passage. His crime was still fresh.

His hands were still shaking.

Ketty drew back, her breath ragged, her eyes fixed on his chest. “If it’s not you, whose blood is it? You said you wouldn’t murder anyone.”

“I said I wouldn’t if I could help it. But don’t worry. It wasn’t your kin.”

“Smoke—”

“Ketty, I saw one of the Hauntén.”

Her eyes went wide in horror. “You murdered a Hauntén? What are we going to do? They’ll come after us—”

“I didn’t murder a Hauntén! I just saw one. I’ve never seen one before and I hope I never do again, but I don’t want to talk about it. Here—” He took the satchel from his shoulder. “Hold this, but don’t open it yet.”

She eyed the bag suspiciously, but then she took it from him. “It’s heavy. How much flour did you buy?”

“Enough.”

While Smoke set aside his sword, Ketty again tested the weight of the bag. “Since you can carry all this through the threads,” she asked thoughtfully, “could you take me too?”

Smoke stripped off his coat and the stained tunic beneath, trying to imagine carrying Ketty with him into the weft. He shook his head.

“But why not?”

“It’s not your nature. Some flowers grow only in the shade while some find life in the bright sun.”

“And you live in both places.”

“Come see what I’ve brought you.” Catching up the satchel in one hand, he took her hand in the other and tumbled onto the bed, pulling her down beside him. Then he opened the bag, and without letting her see inside it, he pulled out a neatly folded piece of wine-red silk.

Her eyes went wide in astonishment. She seized the cloth, rolled out of bed, and ran to the open doorway to admire the color in the day’s last light. “Smoke! I’ve never seen anything so lovely.” She turned to look at him, tears in her eyes.

He grinned, well pleased with himself, and the fear that had followed him back from Nefión began to fade. “Come,” he told her. “There’s more to see.”

He pulled out the bag of flour and set it aside. Then he showed her the rest of the cloth: flannel, canvas, more silks. There was thread too, to stitch them with. Ketty lay back on the bed, her eyes glazed as if exhausted from lovemaking. It was an expression that aroused him at once, and it seemed to him a fine idea to give her an additional reason to swoon. Her belly had grown big and round, but they’d learned ways to deal with that. He leaned over to kiss her.

But she sat up suddenly and, ignoring his advances, she reached for the sack. “It’s not empty yet! What else did you bring?”

“Books. For me to read.”

“You know how to read?”

He smiled and kissed her again.

“What kind of books?”

“The sort that would frighten you. Except the herbal book. You might like to look at the pictures.”

“Show me?”

He peered into the satchel and pulled it out. They sat together, while Ketty turned the pages, admiring all the fine drawings. She recognized many of the plants, and named some. “I can’t read,” she said after a while.

“I know. Why should you? You’ve probably never even seen a book before.”

“Oh yes I have! A poet who visited our village had one. He read the most extraordinary tales from it.” Her finger hovered over the neat lettering. “I would like to be able to read a book like this. Smoke? How did you learn to read?”

“My sisters made me learn when I was a child.”

“Will you teach me?”

“No.”

“No? Why ‘no’? Is it sacred? Or is this not in my nature either?”

He took the book out of her hands and set it aside. “No, because it’s my nature to want to taste you and love you and wrap myself all around you, and enter into your sacred gate when I’ve been away from your sweet body for so very long.”

“You’ve been gone only today!” she protested, laughing.

“It’s too long for me. Now surrender, and maybe if you can keep your eyes open after, I’ll tell you what the letters mean.”

There was a strange day near midsummer when the trees woke up and started whispering among themselves. Ketty noticed it first. She ran under the boughs, grinning like a little girl while the leaves rustled and hissed above her head. “Smoke, listen! Listen! Can you understand their words? Do you know what they’re saying?”

He listened, but he didn’t share her delight. Trees should not be talking. They’d never talked before. There was no reason for them to talk now. He didn’t like it. Not at all.

“I can’t understand them.”

“Oh well. I guess it’s not in your nature. Maybe only the Hauntén can understand trees.”

The Hauntén? Smoke’s heart started thudding. Could this be a Hauntén spell? One that was sent by the forest spirit he’d encountered at the cottage? If she found them, he’d have to kill her.

But his mind had hardly formed this thought when he recoiled from it. He did
not
want to see her again.

He did not want to kill her.

He listened to the trees, but though he was sure their whispering was a dialog of true words, none of them were words he knew. In the early afternoon the trees gave up their conversation, and afterward they spoke only the susurration of the wind.

A few days later, Ketty’s labor began.

She was restless in the morning, walking about in the forest as her belly began to cramp. In the afternoon she curled up in bed with the midwife’s books, reading through all three of them again. She’d read them so many times she’d memorized almost everything they had to say, though she never tired of looking at the pictures. Yet as the light faded, she put them aside.

Night came, and her pain grew. Ketty was frightened. By midnight she lay in bed, her skin glistening with sweat as the birth pangs wrenched from her moans and tears. Smoke could hardly bear it, and when she begged him to make it stop he was sure that she would die, and that this was his punishment for murdering his mother on the day of his own birth.

Many times he turned to consult the midwife’s book. Though he had long since memorized everything it contained, he looked again and again for something he might have missed. But there was nothing. Only her agony, that went on until dawn.

Then her cries changed, and it all grew worse. She growled and screamed and wrestled with the demon inside her. And then as her legs parted, he saw at last a dark mass at her sacred gate. “Ketty! I see it! It’s just like the picture. Our baby is nearly born.”

Yet another agony came over Ketty and she screamed and pushed.

“Easy, easy, my love,” Smoke urged her, remembering the instruction from the book. Then the baby’s head was free. He looked at it, and knew that his mother’s vengeance had taken a different form. It was a demon head—all squashed and malformed, wrapped in blood and slime. Smoke drew back in fear . . . but truly, it was just a little thing. He reached out to support its head in his palm, astonished at its fiery warmth. Then he helped its shoulder to slip free. And then, with a sigh of deepest relief from Ketty, the rest of the baby slid into the world.

The baby was a girl. Smoke held her slippery body in his two large hands, frowning at her. “She’s ugly, Ketty.” Her fists were moving in little circles, and after a moment she bleated, and then she wailed.

Ketty shuddered, lying exhausted on the bed. “Give her to me. Let me see.”

Smoke tied off the umbilicus as the midwife’s book instructed, and then he held up the howling child for Ketty to see.

Astonishment illuminated Ketty’s face. “She’s not ugly! She’s perfect. Hand her to me.”

A strange feeling came over Smoke. Was it the scent of this ugly, shriveled baby? Surely it was not her looks! But something about her made his heart swell with a dire affection. She was still squalling in his hands, but when he bent to kiss her forehead, she quieted. As he gazed at her, it seemed to him he had never seen anything so precious.

“Smoke!”

Ketty’s sharp tone recalled him. He smiled. “We have a daughter, Ketty.”

“Let me hold her.”

He passed the baby to her, and she cradled the tiny child against her breast. Smoke looked at them and thought he should die of joy in that moment, and that he would surely die if they were ever taken from him.

“I hope I never am parted from you Ketty.”

Her shining eyes shifted from the baby, to gaze at him. She smiled. “And why ever should you be?”