That made operational sense. And was not anything that I had to know about to do my job.
Firefly began to make soft, nonsensical noises, perhaps murmured in words in a language that I did not recognize. “Is this it?”
“It is. Yes. Time to put her away.” Conveniently, we were approaching the Company compound. Mischievous Rain gently shed Shin and Ankou, came to me on hands and knees. She brushed a wisp of hair off Firefly’s face. “She’s grubby. I should have made her take a bath.”
Firefly had little use for water polluted by soap, especially where her skin might come into contact.
She did smell, and not pleasantly, though I had not noticed it earlier. “Has she been sick?” I had yet to see either twin show any sign of ill health.
“No. We’ll be down in a minute. You take her inside. I’ll handle the carpet.”
“Right.” And, bump, the ground arrived. “Ouch!”
“What?”
“My leg is asleep.”
“Shake it out. Go. Put her to bed. Cover her up.” She lifted Beloved Shin off the carpet, onto a patch of grass, but ignored Ankou, who shifted himself only after she began to tilt the carpet.
* * *
I stood over Firefly, looking down while the Taken tucked Beloved Shin in. She joined me. “What do you think?”
“She’s an all right kid. Scary smart. Scary well-informed for her age. And she’ll be as good-looking as her mother when she grows up.”
Firefly’s mother did not disagree. “And Beloved Shin?”
“He’s a boy. Otherwise, same story.” I had not yet asked about the names. I was increasingly uncomfortable in circumstances growing ever more domestic.
“I worry about them. I really do.”
“Mothers are supposed to worry.”
“I hope they’ll survive the coming darkness. I hope they’ll make us proud.”
“Huh?”
“Oh. Yes. I’ve been putting it off because I don’t know how to tell you. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you at all.”
My right eyelid began to twitch. Something was about to happen that I was not going to like. I might be about to learn something that I did not want to know.
“Shin and Baku are your children, too.”
I gulped a gallon of air. Then I sucked down another. And then I squeaked, “That’s not possible.” Those weird kids my children? I never touched her! And, no kid of mine could ever be as weird as those two.
Mischievous Rain was ready for an argument because we never … I did cop a feel that one time but that just would not do it. As a trained physician I knew how babies got made. She told me, “Don’t get all excited and loud and wake them up. They don’t need to know.” She toyed with the end of the reddest streak in her hair, which drew my attention to her blue hair clip. Despite my distress I noted the fine craftsmanship of the piece. “You were in the Tower a long time.”
“I was.”
“A lot longer than went by out here. And She can make time move how she wants. Like the legends of the night in elf hill, only backwards.”
Elf hill stories are universal. They exist even where people never heard of elves. Always there is the tale of the handsome or beautiful stranger who takes you to dance in paradise. And then you come back. Your newborn daughter is a great-grandmother who hates you for abandoning her mother and her. And no one else remembers you at all.
“You don’t remember much of what happened in there,” she said. “I don’t remember much, either, except that I was there a lot longer.” A gesture indicated the children. “They remember everything. But they won’t share.”
“You don’t look any older, though,” I blurted. “Just prettier.” Undeniably true but I managed to sound like a dirty old man saying it.
“I aged inside of me. But I am prettier.”
A ghost of a recollection of my Tower time fluttered through my head. Me, face-to-face with the actual, living Lady, who was a ringer for Tides Elba, and every bit as young, everywhere but in the eyes.
“Despite having produced your twin children, I remain technically qualified to become konzertasa.”
“I am seriously uncomfortable talking about this.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to connect with the father of my children.”
“Uh…” Real articulate.
“Exactly. That is you.”
“Uh…”
“Tides Elba is Taken. The Lady saw something in her that was overlooked by everyone else. She wakened it. Tides Elba will become one of the great powers of the world, stronger than anyone in this province, Whisper included. She is…” A moment’s hesitation. “She is an almost thoroughbred descendant of … She is a remote niece of the woman in the Tower, which she did not ask for. She did not ask to be the Port of Shadows, the mother of your children, nor even the konzertosma. But here she is, trying her best to be a good mother while she does what she came to Aloe to do, hopefully without having to waken the unfathomable terror slumbering inside her.”
I said, “Uh…” again, uncomfortable in a whole new way. She was getting emotional.
She had been staring at her hands in her lap. She looked up now, fixed me with a ferocious stare. “They are your children. Your time in the Tower wasn’t a one-way experience. Oh! Don’t start that! I’m not one of your idiot Company friends. I know you. The Eye works both ways. Never mind. Listen. We have children. If I could manage this out here without you knowing that we do I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
She never broke eye contact. I tried but failed. I could think of nothing to say that did not sound whiny, however totally true.
She turned me loose but still held my hand lightly. I managed not to jerk away. I managed not to panic and run.
“I don’t expect you to be a husband. You didn’t ask for this, either. But I do expect you to help while I’m out there being Mischievous Rain. This could be a harsher summer than anyone expects. The divinations show nothing concrete. They get murkier the farther ahead you look. If I try to be the Taken and our children’s mother all at once I’m likely to lack focus when focus might make the difference between victory and a miserable death for all of us. So I’m spilling the truth and asking for help, just for this summer.”
She sounded completely sad. Maybe Sorrows would have been a better Taken name than the flighty Mischievous Rain.
What was the Lady up to? “If that’s what she set up and that’s what she wants, I have no choice but to acquiesce.”
Ah, hell! I did it again. Amidst all the emotion, here came that smoldering, ugly dark look that told me I had my foot in my mouth up to the kneecap. Again. “Sorry. You know me. Sisters and whores, never lovers or wives.”
“I do make liberal allowances, darling, but I’m running short on allowances to make.”
I struck a thin vein of nerve and mined it. “Hey, you’re the one who said she knows me.”
“I did?”
“I didn’t imagine that. You said you know me better…” I stopped. Not smart. I would just dig my grave a cubit deeper. “I will do what I can. You take into account my utter lack of experience and the fact that I have professional responsibilities of my own.”
I should have been a dick and just walked away. But the woman did know me. She seduced me by dangling paternity under the nose of my sense of responsibility.
“Thank you. I just hit you hard. You need time to get your mind right. I’ll say good night for tonight. We’ll start our life as parents tomorrow—unless you’re in a mood to go flying. There’s something I need to look at out Honnoh way.” Her tattoos were crawling. She tinkled briskly when she moved.
I was tempted to go, just to distract myself with my fear of falling. But she was spot-on about me needing time to get my head together. “Not tonight, darling.”
She shrugged. She handed me a piece of lapis lazuli likely carved by the same hand that had produced the clip in her hair. “Keep this handy, love. If anything happens with the kids you’ll hear it and be able to h
elp.”
“All right.” The clip looked like a cuddle puddle of serpent devils mating.
The Taken had several more similar pieces lying around.
Another something to add to the think-about pile.
* * *
I spent time better invested in sleep inscribing this in a personal journal instead of the official Annals. Annalists to come ought not to have to relive my personal traumas.
I held the carved blue stone to my ear, heard Firefly and Shin snoring. Those kids produced a vigorous racket. Then, having eavesdropped, I speculated about the artifact forever fixed in the Taken’s hair. My bit of blue was smaller and flatter but more intricately carved.
Had she sent a message with it? The children did not need much oversight, really.
Maybe nothing we shared remained private. The Lady did like to know everything that happened, especially when the Taken were involved.
Here on the frontier the problematic Taken get away with more than they do when posted closer to the Tower.
Exhaustion caught up. I had to go lie down.
Turbulent thoughts did not keep me awake for long.
Just before darkness claimed me I saw Ankou staring at me with all three eyes from so close that I could smell his fishy breath.
* * *
The Lieutenant turned up at sick call. I was surprised. He does not get sick. “I thought you were out in the country.”
“I was. And so shall I be. But, meantime, I’m pretty sure I broke my right big toe. Have a look.”
I did. “You’re right. Look at it, all swollen and purple. How did you manage that?”
“Running in the dark, barefoot. The Taken swooped in on our camp with no warning.”
“I’ll talk to her about that. Not much I can do here but tie it to the next toe and have you stay off it. Check in with the quartermasters. They’ll get you ice from the icehouse. Ice will help with the swelling.”
He nodded. He would take my advice, some, being a more reasonable patient than most. But he did have more on his mind. “I had that talk with the woman myself while she was bringing me here.”
“I’ll reinforce it, then. Hang on. I need to fit you with crutches. And you need to switch off with Candy.”
“Something happen between you and her? She was in a really odd mood and it seemed like you were why. Plus, you’re a bit odd yourself.”
“I’m just tired. I haven’t been getting much sleep.”
“Like that, eh?”
“Not what you’re thinking. Let me scribble a note to the Old Man. We need time to get you healed. We’ll want you to be in perfect shape come summer.”
“You know something the Taken hasn’t shared with the rest of us?”
“Only that she thinks it’s going to get hairy.”
The Captain surprised me by grounding the Lieutenant for as long as it would take for his toe to heal properly. I showed the Lieutenant my own gnarly right great toe as an example of what could happen otherwise. Then the Old Man stunned everybody by assigning Two Dead to replace the Lieutenant. “Time we got some use out of the man.” He sent Goblin out to relieve Silent, too. That made some sense. Silent needed time to relax. Silent did not say much so most guys did not notice but he was the hardest worker in the whole damned outfit.
* * *
I just do not understand how the rumor mills gather their grist. There were no witnesses to my conversations with Mischievous Rain, saving Ankou and possibly the Lady from afar, yet word began circulating saying that we would marry to give our children a legitimate name.
The rumors did not exactly proclaim my paternity, they just had me and the Taken making our night sport official and legal.
I first heard about it when I got called in for a disciplinary review. Candy said, “The Company discourages marriage between its members and outsiders.” Well … There are a few wives in the ranks, mostly women more fierce than their husbands. Sergeant Chiba Vinh Nwynn was the prime example.
I said, “I can’t imagine how this crap gets started. It just does. And then it takes on a life of its own.”
“And if you have a knack for sniffing you might catch a whiff of the truth behind it. What’s going on with you two?”
“Nothing. But since you and the Tower are determined to make us a couple I know you’ll see what you want. We’re going to work together for the kids’ sake. That’s it. That’s all. There ain’t no more. No touchy, no feely, no push me, no pull you.”
“Really? And you’re both still alive?”
“Yes. I am that old. I lied about my age when I joined up.”
Not true, but I do misstate my age occasionally, should being younger or older shake a little grime off my apparent stupidities and misdeeds.
Candy chose to believe me because I do not often lie. But he did find it hard to credit that a man able to get as close to Mischievous Rain as I was would keep his hands to himself.
They all kept forgetting that Mischievous Rain was Taken, not just a really desirable girl. She had yet to demonstrate that dramatically.
* * *
Supper with the family, with Croaker on the daddy job.
I did not visit the Dark Horse much anymore, nor did I miss it except in that I could no longer head on over whenever I wanted. I felt that difference right away. Mischievous Rain felt it, too. For the kids it was business as usual. They remained barely restrained demonic entities, too mature to be real—in my estimation, based on my inadequate experience.
Mischievous Rain told me, “I need you to check Firefly’s bottom. Thank you, Flora.” One of the servant girls had exchanged an empty platter for one bearing cubes of pickled fish. “She has a rash. Maybe she’s not cleaning herself right. But maybe she squatted in some poison ivy.”
I noted Flora being slow to leave. She was thirteen, short, pretty, and well blessed up top. She had inspired the Taken to put out draconian warnings about touching her girls. So. I had not considered servants when wondering how rumors got started.
Eavesdroppery and a bit of poetic license could explain everything.
“Poison ivy? They aren’t supposed to leave the compound.” They would have to go a good way outside to run into that insidious vine.
“They aren’t. They definitely aren’t. And yet they did.” Mischievous Rain laid a savage glare on her offspring. “They cozened Gurdlief into taking them to the woods on the other side of the creek.”
Firefly volunteered, “We saw some rabbits. I almost caught one.”
I, rather than their mother, countered, “And what almost caught you?”
Kids and mother alike eyed at me with open mouths. So. Even the Taken had not considered the situation in that light.
Ankou, in a curl around his food bowl and pretending to nap, opened an eye and awarded me a wink.
Maybe the kids had not been as much at risk as I thought. As with Mischievous Rain, there was much about Ankou not yet shown. “The Rebel must have scouts watching. A chance to grab the Taken’s kids would be hard to pass up.”
Mischievous Rain eyed her little villains, and Ankou, but said nothing. The kids nodded, abashed, even so.
We could only hope that the message had gotten through.
The Firefly bottom problem proved trivial. A good scrub and a smear of ointment, with instructions as to better self-care, dealt with that.
* * *
The Old Man caught me as I passed headquarters. “How close to being ready to make movement are you?”
“Into the field? I could be out the gate in six hours. Maybe less. I’ve prepped everything that I can.”
“Good. I knew I could count on you. How’re you getting on with the wife?”
My expression must have turned fierce. He stepped back. “All right. But there is a reality that we’re trying to project.”
Yeah. Sure. Got it, boss. “We get along. We’re as domestic as we can be.” I told him about Firefly’s cross-creek adventure and diaper rash.
“I’ll cautio
n the sentries. As for the rest, take the ribbing and just bust out the random smirk.” He held his hand in front of his mouth as though hoping to frustrate lip-readers. “It won’t be forever. And, on a personal note, what the hell is your problem? I’d love to have that woman beside me while every swinging dick in the province goes bugfuck with jealousy.”
I was flabbergasted, that was so far out of character.
He continued, “And the town library tell me they want their scroll back.”
“Oh. I forgot. She has it. I’ll take it back tomorrow.”
“Later, then. Things to do.” I watched the Old Man go. He was so much more hands-on, lately. Tended to make a man wonder.
* * *
I told Mischievous Rain that the library wanted its scroll. She glanced at Seijou, doing maid stuff with an ear cocked. “I’ll go with you.” And she did, wearing midnight under a silvery robe that suggested angel wings when she raised her arms. The robe’s inner face was all shimmery metallic colors that pulled at you, threatening to swallow you up. She sat by in serene silence while I handled my patients, observing, never once volunteering to help. The first few all stared, then backed away. I figured that folks with lesser afflictions would start not showing up soon. And so it went.
Our visit to the library caused considerable consternation. The Limper himself, with his unutterably foul reputation, might not have troubled those people as much as did Mischievous Rain.
Still, there were more librarians around than ever I had seen before. A Taken who was once the konzertosma was a curiosity indeed.
Several women lost their nerve early and turned scarce. Those that held their ground sweated and shook and stared. My wicked soul would not be restrained. “What did you do to these people, sweetheart?”
“Not funny, lover. This is why I stayed away.”
“Let me do the talking.” The staff knew me. I was a regular. Some did try to find me interesting stuff. All but one were volunteers who just worked the occasional hour. The full-time goddess of the books was a maiden lady a decade my senior. She had made a point of letting me know that she had not served in the temple, never had married, and never had let herself to be touched by a man. I thought she protested excessively, maybe trying to goad me into taking a shot at adjusting her status. I had let the opportunity pass.