Lynn Flewelling - The Bone Doll's Twin

And if Tobin hadn’t yet tried to emulate Ki’s boisterous nature, Arkoniel could tell that he gloried in it. He glowed like a full moon in Ki’s presence and delighted in the older boy’s tales of his large and colorful family. It wasn’t only Tobin who loved these, either. When the household gathered around the fire each night, Ki was often their principal entertainment and would soon have everyone holding their sides as he described the foibles and mishaps of his various siblings.

He also had a substantial store of garbled fables and myths learned at his father’s hearth; stories of talking animals and ghosts, and fanciful kingdoms where men had two heads and birds shed golden feathers sharp enough to cut off the fingers of the greedy.

Endeavoring to follow Iya’s advice, Arkoniel sent for richly illustrated texts of the more familiar tales, hoping these would coax the boys into their reading lessons. Tobin was still struggling with his letters and Ki was little help. The older boy had proven resistant to such learning in the proud, backward way of a country noble who’d never seen his own name written out and didn’t care to. Arkoniel did not chide them; instead, he left a book or two open to particularly exciting illustrations, trusting curiosity to do his work for him. Only the other day, he’d caught Ki puzzling over Gramain’s Bestiary. Meanwhile, Tobin had quietly set to work on a history of his famed ancestor, Ghërilain the First, a gift from his father.

Ki proved a better ally when it came to magic. The boy possessed a child’s normal fascination with it, and his enthusiasm smoothed the way for Arkoniel to attempt to address Tobin’s odd fears. The wizard began with small illusions and a few simple makings. But while Ki threw himself into such pastimes with all his usual carefree abandon, Tobin’s reactions were less predictable. He seemed pleased with lightstones and firechips, but grew wary whenever Arkoniel suggested another vision journey.

Tharin was well pleased with Ki, as well. The boy had an innate understanding of honor and took happily to a squire’s training. He learned the rudiments of table service, though there was little formality at the keep, and eagerly strove to master the other arts of service, though Tobin stubbornly resisted most efforts to be served. He refused any help in bathing or dressing, and much preferred to take care of his own horse.

In the end, it was at swordplay that Ki proved most useful. He was less than a head taller than Tobin, and had been fighting with his brothers and sisters since he could walk. He made a proper sparring partner, and a very demanding one, too. More often than not he emerged victorious, and Tobin bruised. To Tobin’s credit, he seldom sulked about it and listened willingly as Tharin or Ki explained to him what he’d done wrong. It perhaps helped that Tobin was Ki’s master at archery and horsemanship. Until he’d come here, Ki’s backside had never had a proper saddle beneath it. A knight’s son he might be in name, but he’d had the hard upbringing of a peasant. Perhaps because of this, he never balked at any task and was grateful for any favor. For his part, Tobin, who’d been kept too close to the women for too long, considered every new task a game and often insisted on helping out with chores that most noblemen’s sons would have been insulted to consider. As a result, he grew brighter and browner by the day. The men in the barracks gave Ki all the credit and made pets of them both.

When Nari or Arkoniel fussed over Tobin raking stalls and mending wall beside Ki, Tharin simply shooed them back into the house.

“The demon has been quieter since he came,” Rhius murmured aloud, interrupting Arkoniel’s thoughts.

“Has it?” he asked. “I don’t suppose I’ve been here long enough to judge.”

“And it never seems to hurt Tobin anymore, not since—not since his poor mother died. Perhaps that was for the best, after all.”

“You can’t mean that, my lord!”

Rhius kept his gaze on the meadow. “You knew my lady when she was happy and well. You didn’t see what she became. You weren’t here to see.”

Arkoniel had no answer for that.

The boys had reached a truce now. Lying side by side in the snowy grass, they were pointing up at the clouds drifting across the blue winter sky.

Arkoniel looked up and smiled. It had been years since he’d thought to play at finding shapes in the clouds. He suspected that this might be the first time Tobin had ever tried.

“Look,” said Ki. “That cloud is a fish. And that one over there looks like a kettle with a pig climbing out of it.”

Tobin was unaware of the wizard watching him, but his thoughts were running along similar lines. It seemed that everything had changed again since Ki’s arrival, and this time for the better. Lying here with the sun on his face and the cold seeping up through his cloak, it was easy to forget about mothers and demons and all the other shadows that lurked at the corners of his memory. He could even almost ignore Brother crouched a few feet away, watching Ki with black, hungry eyes.

Brother hated Ki. He wouldn’t say why, but Tobin could tell just by the way he watched the living boy that he wanted to pinch and slap and hurt him. Every time Tobin called Brother he warned him not to, but that didn’t stop him from doing things that startled Ki, like pulling objects out of his hands or knocking over his mazer at table. Ki always jumped a little and hissed curses between his teeth, but he never ran or cried out. Tharin said that was a sign of real courage, to stand fast when you were scared. Ki couldn’t see Brother, but after a while he claimed he could sometimes sense when he was there.

If it had been up to Tobin, he’d have sent Brother away and let him go hungry for a while, but he’d sworn to Lhel that he’d care for him and he couldn’t go back on his word. So he called Brother every day and the baleful spirit lurked on the edges of their games like an unwelcome hound. He hovered in the shadows of the toy room, and went into the forest with them when they rode, somehow keeping up with their horses without ever running. Recalling his dream, Tobin once offered to let Brother ride behind him on his horse, but the spirit greeted this with his usual uncomprehending silence.

Ki pointed up at another cloud. “That one looks like the fancy cakes they sell at the Festival of Flowers back home. And there’s a hound’s head, with its tongue hanging out.”

Tobin picked a few black beggars ticks from his hair and flicked the prickly seeds up at the sky shapes. “I like the way they change as they go. Your dog looks more like a dragon now.”

“The great dragon of Illior, only white instead of red,” Ki agreed. “When your father takes us to Ero I’ll show you the painting of it in the temple in Goldsmith’s Street. It’s a hundred feet long, with jewels for eyes and the scales all outlined in gold.” He searched the sky again. “And now the cake looks like our maidservant, Lilain, with Alon’s bastard eight moons in her belly.”

Tobin glanced over at his friend and could tell by the slant of Ki’s grin that there was a story coming.

Sure enough, Ki went on. “We thought Khemeus would kill the pair of them, since he’d been panting over her since she come to us—”

“‘Came to us,’” Tobin corrected. Arkoniel had tasked him with helping Ki learn to speak properly.

“Came to us, then!” Ki said, rolling his eyes. “But in the end the boys just had a fistfight out in the yard. It was pouring down rain and they fell in the manure heap. Then they went off and got drunk. When Lilain’s baby finally did come it looked like Khemeus anyway, so it was probably his after all, and he and Alon had another fight over that.”