Elfhome

13: KNOCK KNOCK OPEN THE BOX

Windwolf found Tinker deep in mad-scientist mode in Poppymeadow’s woodshed. He hadn’t come home the night before. She distracted herself from his absence by blowing up wood and telling herself someone would come tell her if something horrible had happened to him. Wraith Arrow — if he were still alive — which would be doubtful. Maynard. True Flame. The Wyverns. Chloe Polanski. Someone!

She worked through all of Poppymeadow’s spare lumber and had the staff raid the neighboring enclaves for more. She was starting to think she would need to decimate Pittsburgh’s entire supply of ironwood, when he appeared.

“Finally!” She launched herself into his arms. He swept her up off her feet. He smelled of blood and smoke and mud. He hugged her so tight she realized that he had had his own fears.

“We really need to work on communication,” Tinker said.

“Yes.” Windwolf laughed tiredly. He slid up her safety goggles and kissed her. “The marines, once they were able to fight through the oni to my side, told me of your adventure. You impressed them.”

She blushed, feeling like a kid again, caught raiding the dynamite locker. “You’re not upset with me?”

“You are my domi, Beloved. It means we will be together, forever, but it also means that in times like these, you must act for me. I cannot have one without the other, and in truth, I would not want it any other way. I love your courage and your ability to lead.”

She supposed that made sense. She hated that he needed to go out and fight, and yet she would not want him to let Pittsburgh fall to the oni, either. Blood and mud were sprayed across the front of his white silk shirt, and there was a bruise on his cheek. Something had gotten through his shield and hurt him. The Stone Clan children had forever, and yet three of them were now dead. She hugged Windwolf tighter, wrapping arms and legs around him. And for a while, all that mattered was that they were together.

After Windwolf examined the chest with her, they ended up in the hayloft, as if they were just two average teenagers sneaking away for some privacy.

They were, of course, being discreetly guarded by their Hands. Tinker wasn’t sure which made the sekasha more nervous: the chest or her blowing things up.

The problem with going into mad-scientist mode was it didn’t shut down for nookie. Even as Windwolf nudged up the blue cheetah-print camisole with his nose, her mind was pointing out inconsistencies in the events she’d just told him.

She sighed and gave up resisting the demand for answers. “Did Sparrow know about Earth Son’s offer to sponsor anyone from his clan that came to the Westernlands?”

“I do not believe so.” Windwolf used his lips and tongue to quiet the mad scientist. . for a few minutes.

“The thing I keep going back to with the kids: how did Yutakajodo know? He sent the lesser bloods to the train station because he knew that there would be elves traveling alone. Elves no one would miss. How would Yutakajodo know about the kids when the rest of us were so clueless?”

Windwolf leaned back. Emotions played across Windwolf’s face, starting with anger. It gave way to confusion, and he shook his head. “I sent word to the queen after the oni kidnapped you — before they even took Little Horse as your whipping boy. I knew that my cousin would probably request the Stone Clan to send domana; they excel at city sieges and guerrilla warfare. If this were a battle all in open fields, Ember would have just sent more Fire Clan. She could only require the Stone Clan to send someone — she could not select the domana herself — not without insulting the head of the Stone Clan.”

“Gods forbid we insult people,” Tinker growled.

He grinned at her and then sobered as he traced circles on her bared stomach. “Ember has a thankless job of keeping four clans that would happily slit each others throats from doing just that.”

“Earth Son was at Aum Reanu. Perhaps he told Sparrow while he was there that he planned to sponsor these children. She could have passed that information on to the oni.”

Windwolf considered it and then slowly shook his head. “I doubt it. Sparrow was misleading me as to just how strong the oni force was in Pittsburgh. I wasn’t willing to give up my holdings for help until the oni took you. Then I was willing to give it all away to get you back.”

It made her all fluttery inside to know he meant it. “Wow.” She slapped him slightly on the shoulder. “Don’t say things like that. It wouldn’t have been fair to people like Poppymeadow and Ginger Wine. They depend on you.”

He grinned and kissed her. “You are perfect.”

She blushed and yet felt giddily happy. “Why?”

“Because you’re right.”

“Of course I am. I usually am. I don’t see how the two relate, though. What does that have to do with Earth Son telling Sparrow about sponsoring people?”

“Because he had no holdings in Westernlands until the Crown awarded him remunerations for coming to Pittsburgh.”

She saw the cause and effect then. When Earth Son was at Aum Reanu, he couldn’t have known that Windwolf would ask for help. Sparrow was dead by the time Earth Son arrived in Pittsburgh.

“Could someone have sent Sparrow the information before she was killed?”

“No. My cousin came in all haste, leaving behind half of his people just to get here as quickly as possible. No messenger with a letter could have outstripped him. The entire enclave would have known if we received a message via the distant voice. Sparrow couldn’t have kept the information secret.”

There had been distant voices at Aum Renau. When Tinker was the all-important pivot who would stop the oni invasion, the elves answered all her questions about the magical devices in great detail but very politely refused her request to experiment with them. With everything else, she’d been given free rein — well, they had made her promise not to disassemble the dreadnaught.

As far as she could determine, the elves had discovered how to entangle elements at the quantum level on a large scale. The distant voices appeared to be two marble slabs. A spell was embedded within the stone. As a special pen was moved over one, a special magic-sensitive paper on the paired slab recorded the pen strokes as they were written. Given earth technology, it wouldn’t seem amazing to the casual observer. To know that the distant voices could operate half a world apart without a satellite system or wires connecting them fascinated Tinker. She desperately wanted to take one apart so she could view the spell.

An idea bubbled up. She nudged Windwolf’s chest until he rolled them over.

“We have distant voices here?” She sat up. So far she hadn’t seen any at Poppymeadow’s, but at Aum Renau they were kept in a small locked and guarded room.

“We have four. They work in pairs. We have one to the other three Wind Clan settlements here in Westernlands and one to my father in the Easternlands.”

“Show me.”

It turned out that the distant voices were as tightly guarded at Poppymeadow’s as they had been at Aum Reanu. They were always attended by a member of Windwolf’s personal household, who rang a bell as a message was received. The bell summoned someone who could take the message directly to Windwolf without leaving the device unattended. Like Windwolf said, Sparrow couldn’t have received information without the entire household knowing.

Tinker would be more worried that other members of Windwolf’s household had been in league with Sparrow if she hadn’t spent the weeks at Aum Reanu. It been clear that Sparrow had no friends.

“How did you end up with her as your husepavua?” Tinker dug through the supplies for the distant voices. Windwolf — being rich and systematic — had stocked the room with several reams of the special paper.

Windwolf laughed. “I inherited her, like so many things in my life. Sparrow was vital to the clan during the clan wars. After my grandfather was killed, my father took certain steps to secure his place as clan head. One was to mark Sparrow with the dau to make her domana in name, though not in blood. She thought he would make her his domi—and perhaps if the war continued he would have. Politically it would have been a good match, although loveless.

“The sekasha, however, decided that the war was decimating our people and that it had to end. They united and forced the clans to accept Ashfall as king. He was a wise choice. Ashfall was willing to do whatever it took to create a lasting peace, even sacrificing his children to the cause. He summoned the heads of the clans to court and proposed marriages to tie the clans together with blood. When my parents met for the first time, my father was smitten.”

A whopping ten kids later, Windwolf was born. Apparently Ashfall missed out when the Skin Clan was handing out infertility. She wondered what it would mean for her and Windwolf. Babies — gah! She was so not ready for that.

Tinker counted out a dozen pieces of special paper. “Your dad falls for your mom, dumps Sparrow, and she has an axe to grind forever after.”

“So it appears.” Windwolf followed Tinker back to the woodshed. Pony and Wraith Arrow shadowed them, keeping silent to maintain the illusion of privacy. “My father had no choice. Sparrow would not let go of the war and focus on peace. War would have torn Father’s heart and home apart. He all but exiled her to remote holdings. Anyway, I did not want another domana taking control of Pittsburgh, and yet I did not want to abandon my holdings on the coast. Using Sparrow seemed the perfect compromise. Since there were no other clans in the Westernlands, I thought she could do no harm. . ”

Pony had told Tinker once that Sparrow hoped Windwolf would take her as his domi. Twice burned. That would piss anyone off — but enough to betray your entire species?

“Other than redecorating Poppymeadow’s woodshed, what are you attempting to do?” Windwolf fingered the splinters embedded into the wall, making it look like a cactus.

“I’m trying to safely open the chest from the whelping pens.” Tinker laid the distant voice paper on top of one of her newly created spell-locks. “It requires me to pick the lock.”

“I did not think that was possible.”

She held up a finger to indicate silence. Into the hush, she slowly pronounced, “Three point one four one five nine two.”

There was no outward sign from the spell-lock, but the spell glyphs appeared on the paper as she spoke the syllables of the key. Only when she hit “two” did the spell-lock gleam with power and the lumber it was etched on split into two pieces.

“Owned!” she shouted and danced around the wood shop.

Windwolf scooped her up and kissed her.

“I don’t understand,” Wraith Arrow murmured to Pony. “Yes, it copied the spell, but she made the lock, so she knows the key. How does that help with a lock that she does not know the key to?”

“Ah! Look!” She locked the spell again and put another paper in place. “Two nine five one four one point.” She held out the still-blank paper. “Nothing!” She put it in place again. “Three.” The first glyph appeared. “It only reacts to the correct phoneme when it’s spoken in the correct order. Each glyph as it’s unlocked gives off a minuscule amount of magic in order to activate the next section of the spell. The paper transcribes the glyph. Oh, I think I know how they build the distant voices.” She frowned at the paper. “But how do they make the paper?”

“That is a Stone Clan secret,” Windwolf said.

“Figures.” The mad scientist suggested other secrets that the Stone Clan might have. “Do they have distant voices here in Pittsburgh?”

“I assume they do, but at this moment I don’t know. I can ask Ginger Wine. She will know.”

Tinker considered the possibility that Earth Son had dealt directly with Yutakajodo and frowned as the logic went neatly circular. “Oh, that’s ugly.”

“What is?” Windwolf asked.

“What if the reason Earth Son offered to sponsor anyone that could get to Pittsburgh was to guarantee a steady stream of elves that no one would miss?”

Windwolf’s face went cold. “Earth Son was sacrificing his own people?”

“These kids started arriving weeks ago. Earth Son died last week. Why didn’t he make arrangements for his people to get safely to Ginger Wine’s? Pittsburgh is a strange and dangerous place. He didn’t talk to you about it. He couldn’t have told True Flame, because the Wyverns didn’t know anything. He didn’t even tell his own Hand.”

Windwolf started to pace. “It is dangerous to assume it was him.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s safely dead. There is still Forest Moss to consider. He may or may not be mad, and he was held prisoner by the oni and then conveniently escaped, leading them back to Earth. He was the one that opened the door.”

Deeming the woodshed already half ruined, they moved the chest to it for her attempt to unlock it. Elvish had thirty-eight phonemes, so she rigged her datapad to speak each and then check to see there had been a reaction in the paper. After that it was simply reprogramming one of her hacking programs to use Elvish phonemes instead of numbers and the English alphabet. She set up a remote camera and watched from a safe distance. Even using her datapad, it took the entire morning to pick through the lock. Windwolf slept for two hours and left again.

Shortly after lunch, the lock cracked open, but otherwise it was all slightly anticlimactic.

They slid the lid off, and a pair of laedin guards took it off someplace. Pony checked the chest for bombs and poisonous snakes and midget ninjas.

Tinker frowned at the contents. There were stacks of used spell papers. “Great, more puzzles to work out.”

She lifted them out and carried them to the dining room to spread out on the one sunlit table. The spells scrolled down the left side of tissue-thin papers with such identical precision that they had to have been printed. She lifted two up to the light, aligning the edges of the paper, to check. The spells started and ended in the same exact points. “These were printed on a printer.” Smeared across the page were odd blurs of color. “They look like DNA scans.”

“D-N-A?” Pony asked.

“It’s — it’s stuff I don’t know much about,” she admitted. “Well, my grandfather said when dealing with things outside of your field, go to an expert.”