Lynn Flewelling - The Bone Doll's Twin

It was too hot for blankets or shirts. Sprawled on their backs, they stared up into the shadows.

“It’s been a rotten few weeks, hasn’t it?” Ki said after a while. “With your father—” His voice choked off for a moment. “And old Slack Guts downstairs? Not quite the way we meant to go east.”

A lump hardened in Tobin’s throat and he shook his head. His father’s death, his mother’s ghost, the summons to Ero, Arkoniel’s warnings tonight, and the business with Brother, the pack of strangers waiting for them downstairs—

All the tears he hadn’t been able to find over the years suddenly seemed to find him and rolled silently down his cheeks into his ears. He didn’t dare sniff or wipe at them for fear Ki would know.

“’Bout time,” Ki muttered huskily, and Tobin realized his friend was weeping too. “I was starting to think you didn’t know how. You’ve got to mourn, Tobin. All warriors do.”

Is that what this pain was? Tobin wondered. But it felt so big. If he let it loose, it would sweep him away and he’d be lost. Easier to retreat again into the numbing silence that had protected him for so long. He imagined it flowing into him like liquid darkness, filling his lungs, spreading out to his limbs and head until he was nothing more than a black shape himself.

“That’s not good way, keesa.”

Tobin looked over to find Lhel standing in the doorway. It was dawn.

She beckoned to him, then disappeared in the direction of the stairs. He hurried after her, but caught only the sight of her ragged skirt as she slipped out the door of the great hall. Lord Orun was snoring loudly behind the curtains of his bed. Tobin hurried out through the open gate in time to see Lhel disappearing into the forest across the bridge.

“Wait!” he called, then clamped a hand over his mouth in alarm. The dew-soaked meadow below the keep was filled with Orun’s escort. He’d thought there were only two score or so yesterday, but now it looked like there were at least a hundred. A few sentries were gathered around the morning cook fire, but no one noticed him as he ran barefoot into the woods.

As soon as he reached the shelter of the trees he understood. This wasn’t the real forest; it was the one he’d come to so often in visions after his mother’s death.

This time he didn’t need Brother to guide him. He found the river path easily and followed it to the clearing where the two gentle deer grazed by the hole in the ground. When he entered the opening this time, he found himself inside Lhel’s oak.

The witch and his mother sat by the fire. His mother was suckling an infant at her breast. Lhel held the rag doll on her lap instead of the rabbit.

“This is a seeing dream, keesa,” Lhel told him.

“I know.”

Lhel gave him the doll and shook her finger at him. “Don’t you be forgetting him.”

“I won’t!” What else had he been worrying about all night?

His mother looked up from the baby, her blue eyes clear and sane, but full of sadness. “I want to be there, too, Tobin. Don’t leave me in the tower!” She held up the baby. “He’ll show you.”

Lhel jumped, as if startled to find her here. “Keesa can’t be worried about that. Go!”

Ariani and the baby disappeared, and Lhel drew Tobin down onto the pallet beside her. “Don’t you be worried about her. That’s not your burden now. You look out for you and Brother. And Ki.”

She cast a handful of herbs and bones into the fire and studied the pattern of their burning. “This hairless man? I don’t like him but you must go. I see your path. It takes you to the stinking city of the king. You don’t know this king yet. You don’t know his heart.” She threw in more herbs and rocked slowly back and forth, eyes narrowed to slits. Then she sighed, and leaned close until all Tobin could see was her face. “You see blood? Don’t tell nobody. Nobody.”

“Like the doll.” Tobin thought of his near slip with Ki.

Lhel nodded. “You love your friend, you don’t tell him. You see blood, you come here to me.”

“What blood, Lhel? I’m a warrior. I’m going to see blood!”

“Maybe you will, maybe not. But if you do—” She touched her finger to his heart. “You know here. And you come to Lhel.”

She poked him in the chest again, harder this time, and Tobin woke in his own bed in the hot darkness with Ki snoring softly beside him.

Tobin turned on his side, pondering the dream. He could still feel Lhel’s finger on his chest, and the softness of the furs he’d sat on. A seeing dream, Lhel had told him.

Wondering if he should go ask Arkoniel if it had been a vision or just a regular dream, he drifted back to sleep.

Tobin rode out from the keep on the twenty-third day of Lenthin and didn’t look back. He’d said his farewells at dawn and let the women weep over him. With Ki and Tharin beside him, his father’s ashes at his saddlebow, and a column of men at his back, he set his face for Ero, determined to uphold the honor of his family as best he could.

He’d been surprised to learn from Lord Orun that the ride would take only a day. With no heavy baggage to slow them, they rode for long stretches at a gallop and soon left Alestun behind. Beyond it the familiar road joined another that wound back into the dark forest. After several hours the forest gave way to a vast rolling countryside netted with rivers and dotted with wide-flung farmsteads and estates.

Lord Orun insisted on courtly protocol, so that Tobin was forced to ride in front beside him, with Tharin and Ki behind with the herald and servants. The men from the keep, who were now to be called Prince Tobin’s Guard, rode in the column with the other soldiers. Tobin looked for the disguised wizard among them, but hadn’t caught sight of him before he had to take his own position.

At midmorning they came to a broad lake that reflected the clouds overhead and the fine stone manor house on the far side. A great flock of wild geese was swimming and grazing along its shores.

“That estate once belonged to an aunt of your mother’s,” Tharin remarked as they rode past.

“Who does it belong to now?” asked Tobin, marveling at the grandness of the place.

“The king.”

“Is Atyion as large as that?”

“Put ten of those together and you begin to match it. But Atyion has a town around it, with fields and proper walls.”

Looking back, Tobin saw that his mountains were already growing smaller behind him. “How much longer until we reach Ero?”

“If we push on, I should say before sunset, my prince,” Lord Orun replied.

Tobin spurred Gosi on, wondering how Alestun could have seemed so far away when the capital itself was only a day’s ride. Suddenly the world seemed a great deal smaller than it had.

They passed through a market town called Korma just after noon. It was larger than Alestun and had the usual sort of traders and farmers crowding the square, as well as a few Aurënfaie in elaborately wrapped purple head cloths. Several were performing on lyres and flutes.

Lord Orun stopped at the largest inn to rest the horses and dine. The innkeeper bowed low to him, and even lower to Tobin when he was introduced. Their host made a great fuss over Tobin, bringing him all sorts of foods to try and refusing to take any payment except Tobin’s kind remembrance. He wasn’t used to such a commotion and was very glad to set off again.