Elfhome

38: UNCLEAN BLOOD

Lemonseed was Windwolf’s major domo. She was patient and unmovable as a mountain. She looked no older than Lain, her face only lightly touched by time. Small wrinkles gathered at the corners of her Lady Madonna smile. She had two locks of pure white hair that she wove like silk ribbons through her Wind Clan glossy black hair. She was, however, the oldest member of Windwolf’s household and well over nine thousand years old. She had been born when humans were just wrapping their brains around the idea of keeping animals as pets and planting seeds into the ground to create farms. She had lived through thousands of years of Skin Clan rule before the clans won their freedom.

Most importantly, she was Windwolf’s Beholden. She could be trusted not to talk to the Wyverns about anything damning Tinker let slip.

They cornered her in the kitchen garden among the laundered sheets hung out to dry on strands of steel-spinner silk. The walls of damp white cotton gave them privacy without making it obvious that they were trying to hide.

“What do you know about the naelinsanota?” Tinker asked.

“Oh, that is not a term I’ve heard for nae hou,” Lemonseed said. “It is not something I would tell you lightly. Do you really need to know?”

Tinker nodded. “Please. Everything that you can tell me.”

Lemonseed laughed and smiled and cupped Tinker’s face in her hands. “Oh, sweetness, it would take years to tell you all that I know.” A measure of her Hand’s trust of the old female, neither Pony or Stormsong moved as Lemonseed touched her. “Judging on the last few months, we do not have years for you to hear it all.”

“Unfortunately, no. I’m not sure if I even have days or hours.”

“Ah, the unclean ones?” Lemonseed tilted her head to consider the clouds passing over their narrow cloth hallway. “I was born slave to King Boar Bristle of the Eastern Steppes. He had been born the second son of King War Axe, but he had murdered his father and older brother for his title and was quite determined not to spawn any children that could wrestle away his power. We lived in a great jewellike palace built over a lake that was stocked with the most heavenly smelling water lilies, and glow fish so beautiful it would take your breath away. And yet there wasn’t a moment of the day where you were totally safe. To the king, we were cattle, there to be used and slaughtered. To his favorites, he gave free rein to take their pleasures however they wished. Half of the people that lived in the palace were loyal to the Skin Clan, but the rest of us were secretly Wind Clan. It was my mother who was wet nurse to Quick Blade, Windwolf’s great-grandfather, the king’s bastard who he had ordered drowned in the lake at birth. My older half-brother was drowned in his stead.”

Tinker wondered when Lemonseed would get to her point; and the tengu thought that dragons were long-winded. “So, the unclean ones?”

“That was how it was,” Lemonseed said. “The Skin Clan had great palaces scattered across the known world where we lived like frightened mice as they moved like gods among us, taking pleasure and killing where they desired. But every century, we were growing stronger and bolder. The Soulless One lived on the Inner Sea, half a world away, where Winter Court lies now.”

Obviously there was a huge hole in Tinker’s knowledge, as Lemonseed had said the name as if Tinker should recognize the person. “Who?”

“The emperor of the Skin Clan, Heaven’s Blessing. We called him the Soulless One because he was an albino.”

“Albinos are born without a soul.” Pony sounded like he believed it totally.

“Fortunately, albinos are almost unheard of among elves,” Stormsong added. “Mostly because it was ruthlessly eliminated from the main breed stock shortly after Heaven’s Blessing was born.”

“He was brilliant and ruthless. He sensed the coming years of resistance where we would fight open battles against our masters. The greatest at spell-working, he chose to create his ultimate weapons. Of that, we of the Wind Clan only know the rumors.”

In other words — much fewer words: I wasn’t there, I’m not sure how much of this is true. The reason for the disclaimer became obvious with Lemonseed’s next sentence.

“It is said,” Lemonseed whispered, “that the emperor captured a god. He distilled down its essence and used it to create new castes. The first that he made were the naelinsanota. They were flawed because of his impatience. The second he made were the intanyai seyosa. They looked upon their maker and saw his wickedness. They saw too that he was about to create his own downfall, so they kept their silence. It was with the god’s holy perfection that he made the sekasha.”

Providence had claimed that the Skin Clan had used a dragon to create the sekasha. The children were descended from “brothers” of the sekasha? If the caste was considered flawed, why did the Skin Clan want the children? What abilities had the Emperor been trying to breed into the naelinsanota?

“Why were they considered unclean while the sekasha are holy?” Tinker asked.

“Because of their mothers.” Lemonseed blushed and looked down at the ground. “The Soulless One had developed a spell in which a child would be produced within a female’s womb without her having sex. It has never been clear if the resulting child was the mother’s flesh and blood, or if she was merely a vessel for another’s child. He tested it first using wargs — he was trying to make a creature strictly for war.” Lemonseed waved her hands as she floundered. “The offspring looked like elves. Many did not survive their births. They were eaten by their beast mothers.”

“Gods,” Tinker breathed.

“When he saw he could make elves with the god’s essence, he used filintau-caste to bear the children.”

The filintau were “the clean folk.” The caste had been created to be a pure breeding stock, free of defects. Apparently the mother’s “purity” was enough to affect how the other elves saw the offspring.

Still, how did you even take something like Impatience, render it down, and produce an elf born to a beast? Tinker couldn’t imagine the level of knowledge on gene manipulation that the Skin Clan had to possess. Even the horrific twisting of the oni didn’t compare.

Her new cell phone started to play “Sky Diving”—Blue Sky’s ringtone.

“What is it, Blue?” Tinker answered her phone.

“Everyone is gone, and someone’s here.” Blue’s voice was thin with fear. “I think it’s oni.”

“What? Where are you?”

“Sacred Heart. Someone just broke down the door.”

“Get to the safe room!”

“We can’t! They’re downstairs and we’re upstairs.”

She was running toward the door, aware that warriors were sweeping up behind her. Her mind was racing through the school’s layout. The bedroom doors had frosted glass inset into wooden frames. Only the restrooms had solid doors. “Go to one of the restrooms and barricade yourself in.”

“The toilets or the bathing room?”

It doesn’t matter, she almost wailed and then realized it did. “The bathing room!”

Judging by the shouts and screams and sudden gunfire, Blue Sky had the other kids with him and a gun. Where was Oilcan? Where were Forge and his Hands? There should be a horde of sekasha between the kids and the oni!

There was an awful possibility that the oni didn’t need or want the children alive. Maybe body parts were sufficient, or maybe they would rather that the kids were dead than have Tinker able to discover what was different about them.

“Tinker!” Blue cried over the phone. “They’re breaking down the door!”

“The chute! Come down the chute!”

She waved Pony to head into the school as she detoured to the construction chute. The boxed-in slide slanted down the side of the building, leading from the third-story bathroom to where the dumpster had been parked. What were the numbers of “soft?” She dropped her phone and cast the spell, praying she remembered the fingering chart correctly.

A moment later Baby Duck came shrieking down the slide and landed in soft, yielding nothingness.

“No, no!” Tinker used her foot to block the screaming little female’s attempt to climb her. “I’ve got to catch the others. Someone get her!”

One of the laedin caught hold of Baby Duck and was, in turn, frantically scaled until the little female was latched tight around the warrior’s neck.

Tinker tried to ignore the sudden outbreak of gunfire as Pony led the elves into the school house.

Rustle slid down the chute next, quiet and white. He stumbled to his feet and turned to catch hold of Merry as she slid down to safety. They clung to each other.

Tinker wanted Oilcan’s kids safe and sound, but it was Blue Sky she desperately wanted on the ground beside her. The little idiot would probably wait until last — his father’s genes wouldn’t let him go any earlier. The sound of open warfare came from the school. Cattail appeared, then Barley, but no baby sekasha. “Blue!” There was an explosion above. “Blue!”

And then he was there, safe. She canceled the spell so she could hug him tight. “Idiot!”

She was aware of royal troops arriving, summoned too late by the gunfire and explosion. The kids would have been taken if not for Blue Sky. Half of the troops rushed into Sacred Heart while the rest spread out, flooding the area with red. “Where is Oilcan?”

“I don’t know. We were watching Rocky Horror Picture Show and the dog suddenly started growling.”

The elfhound puppy, Repeat, wasn’t accounted for, either. She could guess its fate — elfhounds were prized because of their courage and selfless loyalty. They were just as bad as sekasha in regard to dying for the ones they loved. She tightened her hold on Blue Sky, reassuring herself that he was fine.

The gunfire stopped. All the oni were most likely dead.

It still left the mystery of what the oni wanted with the kids and where all the adults had gone. Had the oni intended to take the kids or just kill them? Did the oni manufacture some emergency that pulled the adults away? Or had Forge stolen Oilcan, whisking him off to Easternlands? But why would he leave the kids helpless? Tinker swore as she realized she couldn’t question the oni.

She turned to study the faire grounds, and her heart leapt up her throat. Three gossamers drifted above the field, waiting to be tied off at the anchors. All the gondolas were Stone Clan black but edged with red and green. None of them were Forge’s gossamer, but she’d been asleep for hours before she cornered Lemonseed. “Did Forge’s ship come and go while I was sleeping?”

Stormsong shook her head. “No, it didn’t. Forge could have taken Oilcan on the train. Do not worry, domi. The train goes only to Wind Clan holdings. We could use the distant voice to have them detained.”

Pony returned, thankfully unharmed. His anger showed clearly on his face. “They did not leave Pittsburgh. Iron Mace’s Hand has only their primary weapons. Forge’s Hands took all their field weapons, but their shipping crates are here.”

Obviously then, Forge hadn’t gone far, but he didn’t plan to return soon.

Thorne Scratch came pushing her way through the Wyverns and Wind Clan forces, a lone black mote in the wash of blue and red.

“Where is my cousin?” Tinker cried. “Where are Forge and Iron Mace? Why wasn’t there anyone here with the children?”

Thorne Scratch blinked at her, confused, and then looked up at the school and then back to the children. “They were here when I left. I was just down the street. Why would they leave?”

Tinker wasn’t going to get anything useful out of Thorne Scratch. She snatched up her phone.

She tried Oilcan’s number first. “Godzilla of Pittsburgh” started to play in the grass nearby. She let out a cry of hurt as she spotted Oilcan’s phone lying in the weeds. She hung up and called Riki.

Riki answered his phone on the first ring. “How can I serve you, domi?”

“Tell me that you have eyes on Oilcan.”

“I did,” he said cautiously.

“Where is he?”

“I’ll find out,” Riki promised and hung up.

Thorne Scratch had snapped out of her dismay and had gone into fury. “That pig came to me as clan head. He pointed out that with three domana and three Hands of sekasha and the perimeter defenses nearly complete, Oilcan’s enclave was by far the safest place in Pittsburgh. He asked me to go to the other enclaves and find out how many of our people are still in the city. He said that I should go because I would know all of Earth Son’s household who stayed and some of Jewel Tear’s. He made it sound so reasonable. He even suggested that Oilcan would be receiving the funds that the Wind Clan enclaves were receiving for housing our clansmen. Gods, he wove such a web that I never once considered he had some other reason to see me gone.”

Iron Mace was the current Stone Clan head in Pittsburgh. Tinker had assumed Forge had taken Oilcan as a poor substitute for his lost son, but Iron Mace? There was only one reason why a domana would send a sekasha away — and that was because he was about to commit acts that would turn them against him.

Tinker clenched her fist against the fear racing through her. “They wouldn’t hurt Oilcan — would they?”

“This is a war zone,” Pony said. “Protocol would be for Forge’s people to take their field weapons for any extended stay. A transformation spell, such as the one that Windwolf cast on you, would take hours to prepare and then days for Oilcan to recover from.”

Forge had been in the city for days; he could have set the spell up already. Windwolf had cast the spell on her minutes after they arrived at his remote hunting lodge. Forge could transform Oilcan as soon as they reached the casting room. They had to find Oilcan quickly.

“Would Forge’s Hand even allow this — if Oilcan refused?”

Pony and Stormsong exchanged bleak looks and then turned to Thorne Scratch.

The Stone Clan sekasha shook her head slowly. “They see him as a child. They believe he has a child’s grasp of time and ignorance of death. That he can call the Spell Stones is proof that he was born Stone Clan, despite all his protests. To transform him back to full elf would be returning to him what should have been rightfully his — if they had not failed Amaranth.”

There was a flurry of wings, and Riki winged down beside her. He sketched a bow, panting heavily. He was bare chested and without war paint. One look at his face and she knew that he didn’t have good news.

“Someone took out all three spotters that we had watching this block.” Riki waved toward distant rooftops that had tight knots of tengu on them. “The shooters used high-powered rifles. One of our people is dead. The other two are still alive but badly hurt.”

She should have heard the shots. The shooters must have used silencers. “Did they see Oilcan leave with the Stone Clan?”

“He and Iron Mace were at Sacred Heart. Forge was with Prince True Flame.”

It couldn’t have been just a coincidence that the spotters were shot just before Oilcan was whisked away. It terrified her that it was Iron Mace that spearheaded taking Oilcan and not Forge. Her only comfort was that Forge’s Hands had taken their backup weapons. But what if Forge had gone someplace on Prince True Flame’s bidding?

She grabbed a royal marine by the front of his uniform. He went wide-eyed, as her act made him the collected focus of her entire Hand plus one. “Where’s Prince True Flame?”

“He and the viceroy are providing cover for the ground crews and the incoming gossamers in case the fighting spills over to the airfield.”

Yes, she could feel the twin pull on the Spell Stones. Was it a good thing that she couldn’t feel anything from the Stone Clan Stones?

“Is Forge with them?” She was afraid of the answer. “Yes” would be worse than “no,” because it would mean that Iron Mace had acted alone. Oilcan trusted Forge. Normally Oilcan was a much better judge of people than she was. She sucked at it.

“N-n-no,” the marine stammered. “He returned to his enclave prior to the fighting.”

Tinker let the marine go, and he nearly tripped backing quickly away.

Tinker moved through the crowd, grabbing Wind Clan laedin as she spotted them. The area was being flooded by royal troops, and her people were increasingly harder to single out. “Fan out,” she ordered each of them. “Find out if anyone saw the Stone Clan leaving my cousin’s enclave before the shooting started.” The last she told, “Have someone at Poppymeadow’s take you to the train station and see if the Stone Clan left on the train.”

As she turned to question Thorne Scratch in more detail, she realized that there was a sweep of movement that always preceded Prince True Flame. She didn’t want to talk to him; she wasn’t sure if she could do “polite” at this point. She wanted Windwolf there, making everything right, but today was determined to piss her off.

She remembered to bow in greeting. “The Stone Clan domana are working in collusion with the oni. The oni killed the tengu lookouts so the Stone Clan would take my cousin — most likely to spell-work him in secret — and in return, the Stone Clan left his children unprotected.”

Prince True Flame glanced back at the incoming gossamers. “You do not know if that is what happened.”

“What other possible answer could there be?” Tinker cried. “Elves would have used arrows to take out the lookouts. Even my people do not know how to use — use—” She ran into the lack of an Elvish word for the simple gun attachment. “Things that make rifles silent.”

“That is not proof that the Stone Clan colluded with the oni. The oni spawn and the tengu have been at war with each other.”

“That was resolved.” Riki’s High Elvish sounded perfect to Tinker, not that she was much of a judge, only spoken slowly enough that she could follow the conversation. “The tengu that acted against the half-oni were punished, and Jin apologized to the half-oni.”

Prince True Flame waved that aside. “Your sama has taken the proper action, but there’s no telling what the oni spawn might do. They have no sama to take responsibility for their actions, so they can run amok at will.”

The prince didn’t know Tommy Chang if he thought that they had no sama, but she wasn’t going to be distracted by fighting that battle. “My Beholden are dead and wounded, and my cousin is missing.”

“I understand.” True sighed and then, surprisingly, went down on bended knee in front of her. It made her painfully aware of how very tall the prince truly was. They were now eye to eye. Around them was the subtle shift of Wyverns and her Hand to give them the illusion of privacy. “Beloved Tinker, I beg of you to consider Wolf’s position in this.”

It felt like a trick question. “He — he wants to protect my cousin as much as I do.”

“Yes, he does. He will fling himself off cliffs for you. That is why I ask that you consider his safety first.”

It still felt like a trick question. “Are you saying that I have to choose between Wolf and my cousin?”

“You are so blatantly human that I do not blame Wolf for never considering that you may be Stone Clan. No sane being would, but war does not foster sanity. I love my cousin well. He came to court barely fifty, wise for his age and yet modest for all his abilities.” True Flame measured off a size that was just a hair over Tinker’s head. It was intimidating to know that it had been hundreds of years since Windwolf was young enough to look her in the eyes. “Much as I love him, there is little I can do to protect him without endangering our hard-won peace.

“The clan wars are fresh wounds for most of our people. We have lost mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, lovers and children. There are those who will never let the war end, and they are the ones who watch for any slight to excuse a new attack.”

A week ago she would have brushed it off, but she had seen how much the Wind Clan hated Oilcan’s kids just because they were Stone Clan. “You want me to just let them take my cousin?”

“Because Wolf took you as his domi and you have taken him as your domou, there is nothing that the Stone Clan can say. Your cousin is another matter. Forge lost so much, and his grief was made so public, that none would deny him the comfort of an orphaned grandchild. If you block Forge, all will be against you, and by default, Wolf.”

“How can I just let them do whatever they want to my cousin?”

“To suggest Forge means harm to his grandson is slander, and the Stone Clan will call foul. You are under the queen’s protection, but Wolf is not. If you continue to insist that Forge is acting in collusion with the oni when there is no proof that this is true — then Wolf will have to deal with the consequences.”

“This is not right.” Tinker controlled the urge to kick something. She didn’t have her steel-toe boots on, and it would probably be bad form to kick the prince while he was kneeling before her. She glared at Red Knife behind the prince. “My cousin would not leave his household unprotected. Iron Mace deliberately sent Thorne Scratch away so she could not object to my cousin being taken against his will. If not for Blue Sky, the children would have vanished into the city for the second time. Three are dead by the oni’s hand already. My Beholden who stood guard on my cousin is dead. It is not right that the Stone Clan has clemency because I cannot hold up a bloody knife.”

“Politics is a battle of wits, not swords,” Red Knife said. “You are well armed. Apply the rules.”

“Are you really going to take that as an answer?” Riki asked.

She kept tightly focused on the ground because she didn’t want to kick him, either. He wasn’t the one that she was angry with. “Yes. For now. I’m not starting a war with the Stone Clan.”

When they first returned from Aum Renau she hadn’t been sure that she loved Windwolf. How horrible was it that she knew with all certainty that she loved him beyond reason, because otherwise she would have sacrificed him for Oilcan in a heartbeat.

“I’ll deal with them after I’ve taken care of the greater bloods,” she growled. “But if they hurt Oilcan. .”

Power suddenly burned across her magic sense. Somewhere to the south a spell flared into existence, blazing brilliant.

She whimpered.

“Domi?” Pony asked.

“It’s too late. They changed him.” She turned to Riki. “Find Oilcan. Make sure he’s safe, but don’t pick a fight with the Stone Clan domana. I just need to know he’s okay.”

“Yes, domi.” He bowed and took wing. A moment later there was a thunder of black wings, and the skies filled with tengu.

A battle of wits.

Tinker paced the empty halls of Sacred Heart looking for clues.

A battle of wits.

Tinker’s grandfather had taught her chess when she stopped trying to eat the pieces, sometime around her second birthday. She beat him regularly by the time she was five, but she never liked the game. It was fine and good to puzzle around the limits of the pieces, but it ignored the humanity of the game piece’s names. One knight should be able to best the rest in combat. One bishop should be able to perform miracles and raise the dead. One of the rooks should be a genius inventor of impenetrable defenses. One of the pawns should be a coward and another a spy for the other side. While she couldn’t remember the source of this opinion, she suspected Tooloo, since chess with the half-elf often ended with the white queen seduced by the black knight, or the black bishop killing his own king as a heretic.

The thing about chess — it was only hard if you couldn’t guess what your opponent’s next move would be. Once you recognized the pattern of attack, you could run circles around the other player.

Like the oni had been doing to them.

Over and over again, the oni had been one step ahead of the elves.

“Shit,” Tinker breathed as chess, Tooloo, and the events of the last few days collided in her brain.

Fight your shadow, Providence had told her.

A shadow was right there, under her feet, watching every move.

“Shit!” Tinker slapped her hand over her mouth. If she was right, then anything she said could be heard.

“Are you okay?” Stormsong asked.

Hand still over her mouth, Tinker nodded, eyes wide.

How was she going to beat someone that knew what she was about to do?