Word Puppets Read online

  He tried to ask, but his words came out more garbled than a foreigner’s.

  Still, Mehahui understood enough. “Hia granted my prayer.” She stood, the effort clear in her every movement.

  Kahe grabbed her skirt and gestured to the blood. What price had Hia demanded for this power?

  She pushed his hands away. “You have to hurry. I think the main road is the fastest way back, yes?”

  Kahe forced a word past the cloth in his mouth. “Back?” They could go around the battalion in the forest.

  “Yes. Back.” Mehahui stood with her hands braced on her knees, swaying. “You have to go to King Enahu.”

  He shook his head. “Hia’au.”

  “I am not going to Hia’au. The goddess gave me the power to save Paheni, not myself. I am staying here.”

  She could not mean that. Kahe clambered to his feet. The forest tipped and swayed around him, but long practice at being bled kept him standing. He had to make her understand that going to Hia’au would save both her and Paheni. No possible good could come from her staying here.

  As if in answer to his thoughts, Mehahui said, “Look at the soldier, Kahe. Do you see the badge on his shoulder?”

  Kahe dragged his eyes away from her. The coiled hydra of Ouvalle shone against a field of green. Where the necks sprouted from the body, a crown circled like a collar.

  “That’s their king’s symbol, isn’t it? He’s landed. It’s not a single battalion, but his army.” Mehahui beckoned him. “Please, Kahe.”

  He would not leave her here. Kahe clawed at the bandages surrounding his head. If he could only talk to her, she would understand.

  “Please, please go. Hia—” her voice broke. Tears wiped her cheeks clean of dirt. “Hia has given me more power, but I only have until this evening before she takes me home. I want to know you are safe while I meet the King of Ouvalle.”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  Kahe had freely dedicated himself to the goddess but she had no right to demand this of his wife. Mehahui was his wife. His. Hia had no right to take her from him. Not now. Not like this.

  Death combined with Luck showed the hands of Hia and Pikeo and they stood square in the middle of a crossroads. The Mother only knew what else the gods had planned.

  “Hate her.”

  “No. No! Do you think this is easy for me? The only comfort I have is that I am serving a greater good. That this is the will of Hia and Pikeo and the Mother. You will not take my faith from me.”

  How could he live without her? The thunder grew louder, discernible now as the sound of a great mass of men marching closer.

  Mehahui limped to his side and took his hand. She raised it to her lips and kissed his knuckles tenderly. “Please go.”

  Belling through the trees, a horn sounded.

  Kahe cursed the goddess for cutting their time so short and leaned in to kiss his wife. The pain in his jaw meant nothing in this moment.

  The sound of approaching horses broke their embrace. Kahe bent to retrieve his sorcery kit; if he took one of the faster poisons, then he could match Mehahui’s power and meet Hia with his wife.

  Mehahui put her hand on his shoulder. “No. I don’t want you to go to the goddess. Someone must bear witness to our king.”

  He shook his head and pulled out the tincture of shadoweve blossoms.

  “I have spent our entire marriage helping you die and knowing I would outlive you. Have you heard me complain?” She spoke very fast, as the army approached.

  Kahe glanced down the road. The first of the men came into view. It seemed such a simple thing to want to die with her.

  A mounted soldier separated from the company and advanced, shouting at them until he saw his immobile comrade. Moments later, a bugled command halted the force a bowshot away.

  Men crowded the road in the green and black of Ouvalle. Scores of hydras fluttered on pennants, writhing in the breeze. Rising above the helmets of the warriors were ranks of bows and pikes. In the midst of them were towering gray animals, like boars swollen to the size of whales, with elongated, snaking noses that reached almost to the ground and wicked tusks jutting from their mouths. Each whale-boar glimmered with armor in scales of green lacquered steel. The black huts on their backs brushed the overarching trees. What spell had they used to bring these monsters across the ocean?

  Mehahui squeezed Kahe’s shoulder. When she stepped away from him, the absence of her hand left his shoulder cold and light.

  She spoke; a spell amplified her voice so the very trees seemed to carry her words. “Lay down your arms and return to your homes.”

  Involuntarily, the closest warriors began to unbuckle their sword belts. Their sergeant shouted at them and looks of startled confusion or bewildered anger crossed their faces.

  Then, at a command, the front rank of archers raised their bows.

  Kahe reached for what little power was available to him. A rain of arrows darkened the air between them and the army. Kahe hurled a spell praying that Hia would allow him to create a small shield. As the spell left him, the air over them thickened, diverting the leading arrows but not enough.

  Mehahui wiped the air with her hand; arrows fell to the ground. Their heavy blunt tips struck the road creating a perimeter around them. Designed to bludgeon a sorcerer to unconsciousness, without risking a wound that would bring more power, these arrows meant the Ouvallese army had recognized what the two of them were.

  How long would it take them to realize that he was without power? Kahe turned to his kit when the air shuddered. A spell left Mehahui and the trees closest to the road swayed with a breeze. A groan rose from their bases. The trees toppled, falling like children’s playthings toward the road.

  Animals and men screamed in terror. Trumpeting, the tall whale-boars were the first to feel the weight of the trees.

  On the lead whale-boar, the cloth curtains of the black hut blew straight out as a great wind pushed the trees upright.

  The curtains remained open. An ancient, frail man stood at the opening, supported by two attendants—Oahi, the South Shore king’s sorcerer. Another spell left the traitor king’s sorcerer, forming into a bird of fire as it passed over the warriors’ heads.

  Screaming its wrath, the phoenix plummeted toward them. The counter-spell formed in Kahe’s mind and he hurled it, creating a fledging waterbird. The phoenix clawed the tiny creature with a flaming talon and the waterbird steamed out of existence.

  Moments later, Mehahui hurled the same spell. Her waterbird formed with a crack of thunder. The roar of a thousand waterfalls deafened Kahe with each stroke of the mighty bird’s wings.

  As it grappled with the phoenix, dousing the bird’s fire in a steaming conflagration, Kahe saw the power of the goddess. This was why Hia wanted them both there; Mehahui had the power and the knowledge, but not the instincts of a sorcerer.

  Without waiting for her waterbird to finish the phoenix, Kahe attacked the Ouvallese. The pathetic spell barely warmed the metal of the whale-boar’s scales. But when Mehahui copied him, the animal screamed under the red hot metal, plunging forward in terror. Its iron shod feet trampled the warriors closest to it.

  On its back, the attendants clutched Oahi, struggling to keep him upright as he worked the counter-spell. Even though he cooled the scales, the panicked creature did not stop its rampage. A blond, bearded man, with a gold circlet on his helm staggered forward in the hut to stand next to the old man. What would the King of Ouvalle do when all his animals panicked?

  Kahe croaked, “Others.”

  Mehahui nodded, and heated the scaled armor of the whale-boar next to the first.

  As quickly as she heated it, the Ouvallese sorcerer cooled it, but the frightened animal turned the disciplined ranks around it to chaos. Mehahui turned to the next one as the King shouted to a hut behind him.

  Kahe drew in his breath as the front whale-boar plunged into the wood, letting him see the one behind it clearly for the first time. In this hut rode a ha
lf dozen men and women. Though of differing ages, each wore a simple gray skirt with the white flame of Hia—these passengers were some of the dying of Hia’au. The Ouvallese did not have one sorcerer, they had a half dozen, and in battle, Hia’s only chosen people were the dying. Kahe could expect no favors from her, unless he paid her price.

  Clutching the upright post in the corner, a priest of Hia spoke quickly to the woman closest to him.

  Kahe grunted and pointed at them. Mehahui had to destroy the sorcerers before the priest finished explaining the spell he wanted the woman to cast.

  Mehahui nodded and threw the spell to heat their whale-boar’s scaled armor, but Oahi anticipated her and cooled it before the animal panicked. Kahe shook his head. “No. People.”

  Squinting her eyes in confusion, Mehahui refined her spell and released it. The magnitude of the spell staggered Kahe as it passed him. It came from someone on the threshold of death. Mehahui’s face was gray. She swayed on her feet. They had to finish this now, before she went home to Hia.

  The warriors of Ouvalle screamed as one, ripping their helms from their heads. Some threw themselves on the ground in their efforts to get away from armor that began to take on the dull cherry red of heat.

  Even the king wrenched his circlet from his head before Oahi cooled the metal.

  It was a mighty spell, but the wrong one. Hia’s dying wore no metal. Kahe grabbed Mehahui’s arm and pointed at the hut of the dying. He threw a cloud of dark, hoping to absorb the priest in that veil of nothing.

  Mehahui nodded, staggered, and threw the same spell. The world groaned at the immensity of the void she created. As it flew forward, it unfurled to the size of the road. In the moment when it engulfed the first row of warriors, the woman in the hut unleashed her spell as well, dying as it left her. Small and arrow-bright, the spell flew past the void without pausing. Its shape seemed familiar, but Kahe did not recognize the form. He tossed a general defensive spell and prayed to Pikeo for luck that it would be enough to counter this attack.

  The void continued eating its way through the ranks of Ouvallese warriors. Those closest to the edge of the road threw away their weapons and ran for the woods. The old sorcerer in the hut produced the counter-spell for the void, but it only reduced the girth of the dark cloud.

  Kahe looked at his wife, at her gray and bloodless lips, at the bright red staining her skirts and ankles; Hia, Pikeo and The Mother—she had surpassed the ancient man in power.

  The dying woman’s narrow spell struck Mehahui in the belly. Light as white as Hia’s fire flared around her. She convulsed.

  Kahe leaped to catch her as she collapsed. Seeing her fall, the Ouvallese king shouted a command to the few remaining archers. They raised their bows and fired at Kahe and Mehahui. Kahe welcomed the speeding arrows, but they too were consumed by the void Mehahui had created.

  It roiled forward.

  The handler for the king’s whale-boar frantically turned the animal, trying to outrun the void.

  Created in the moment before Mehahui’s death, it was the strongest spell Kahe had yet seen.

  Seeming to recognize this, the sorcerer in the King’s hut grabbed a knife from his side and plunged it into his own heart, throwing the counter-spell again. It struck the void, undoing it, as the whale-boar plunged into the trees. The archers again raised their bows.

  In Kahe’s arms, Mehahui stirred and opened her eyes. She gulped in air. “Oh, Hia. No!”

  Her skin was clear and flushed with life. Kahe took her face in his hands, feeling the warm vitality of her flesh. “How?”

  “They healed me,” she groaned. “The goddess has left.” She looked past him at the archers. Her eyes widened.

  They had no more blunt arrows. A field of sharp points sprang toward them.

  “Pikeo save us!” Kahe threw himself across her, turning to cast a shield at the deadly arrows. It stopped most of them.

  A familiar pain tore open his cheek. Another arrow plunged into his left shoulder and the third went through his right arm and pinned it to his thigh.

  But none of them hit Mehahui.

  Kahe waited for Hia’s power to come to him, but the wounds were too slight. So he sent a prayer to Pikeo begging for good luck. They were in a crossroads, if ever Luck were going to play fair with him, it would be here and now.

  And this would be the moment to strike. Oahi sagged in the arms of his escort, already gone home to Hia, but Kahe lacked the power for any large spells. He tried to reach for his dagger but by unlucky chance, the arrow bound his right arm to his leg. His left arm hung limp. This was how Pikeo answered his prayer?

  Mehahui, flush with life, cast an unbinding spell. It was a simple childish spell, good only for causing a rival’s skirt to drop.

  One tie on the king’s hut came undone.

  Kahe held his breath, praying that Pikeo would notice that chance and play with it.

  As the animal lurched onto the road, the king’s hut slid off and toppled among the remnant of the Ouvallese army. Kahe could almost see the hand of Pikeo knock the king from the falling hut and drop him upon a pike.

  The sharp head pierced the king’s body as he slid down the shaft. He convulsed once and hung limp.

  At the sight of their dead monarch, a rising wail swept through the remaining warriors. Those closest to Mehahui and Kahe backed away. Others, seeing their decimated ranks, threw down their arms and ran.

  Mehahui leaned her head against Kahe’s back. Then she patted him, soft as a hatchling. “Stay with me.”

  Kahe coughed as he tried to speak, gagging on the mass in his mouth. She knelt in front of him.

  Looking at his wife’s fair and healthy face, Kahe sent a prayer of thanks to both gods.

  “The arrow in your cheek appears to have followed the same path as the other did; it is lodged in your bandages. I’d say we have Luck to thank for our survival today.” Mehahui picked up the sorcery kit. “And now, my love, I intend to keep you out of Hia’s hands.”

  She broke the arrow in his arm. He gasped at the sliding pain as the shaft pulled free. Nothing had ever felt so sweet as the touch of Mehahui’s hands, proving they were both alive.

  Clockwork Chickadee

  The clockwork chickadee was not as pretty as the nightingale. But she did not mind. She pecked the floor when she was wound, looking for invisible bugs. And when she was not wound, she cocked her head and glared at the sparrow, whom she loathed with every tooth on every gear in her pressed-tin body.

  The sparrow could fly.

  He took no pains to conceal his contempt for those who could not. When his mechanism spun him around and around overhead, he twittered—not even a proper song—to call attention to his flight. Chickadee kept her head down when she could so as not to give him the satisfaction of her notice. It was clear to her that any bird could fly if only they were attached to a string like him. The flight, of which he was so proud, was not even an integral part of his clockwork. A wind-up engine hanging from the chandelier spun him in circles while he merely flapped his wings. Chickadee could do as much. And so she thought until she hatched an idea to show that Sparrow was not so very special.

  It happened, one day, that Chickadee and Sparrow were shelved next to one another.

  Sparrow, who lay tilted on his belly as his feet were only painted on, said, “How limiting the view is from here. Why, when I am flying I can see everything.”

  “Not everything, I’ll warrant,” said Chickadee. “Have you seen what is written underneath the table? Do you know how the silver marble got behind the potted fern, or where the missing wind-up key is?”

  Sparrow flicked his wing at her. “Why should I care about such things when I can see the ceiling above and the plaster cherubs upon it. I can see the shelves below us and the mechanical menagerie upon it, even including the clockwork scarab and his lotus. I can see the fireplace, which shares the wall with us, none of which are visible from here nor to you.”

  “But I have seen all of t
hese things as I have been carried to and from the shelf. In addition the boy has played with me at the fountain outside.”

  “What fountain?”

  “Ah! Can you not see the courtyard fountain when you fly?” Chickadee hopped a step closer to him. “Such a pity.”

  “Bah—Why should I care about any of this?”

  “For no reason today,” said Chickadee. “Perhaps tomorrow.”

  “What is written underneath the table?” Sparrow called as he swung in his orbit about the room, wings clicking against his side with each downstroke.

  Chickadee pecked at the floor and shifted a cog to change her direction toward the table. “The address of Messrs. DeCola and Wodzinski.”

  “Bah. Why should I care about them?”

  “Because they are master clockworkers. They can re-set cogs to create movements you would not think possible.”

  “I have all the movement I need. They can offer me nothing.”

  “You might change your mind.” Chickadee passed under the edge of the table. “Perhaps tomorrow.”

  Above the table, Sparrow’s gears ground audibly in frustration.

  Chickadee cocked her head to look up at the yellow slip of paper glued to the underside of the table. Its type was still crisp though the paper itself threatened to peel away. She scanned the corners of the room for movement. In the shadows by the fireplace, a live mouse caught her gaze. He winked.

  “How did the silver marble get behind the potted fern?” Sparrow asked as he lay on the shelf.

  “It fell out of the boy’s game and rolled across the floor to where I was pecking the ground. I waited but no one seemed to notice that it was gone, nor did they notice me, so I put my beak against it and pushed it behind the potted fern.”

  “You did? You stole from the boy?” Sparrow clicked his wings shut. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “You may not, today,” Chickadee said. “Perhaps tomorrow.”

  She cocked her head to look away from him and to the corner where the live mouse now hid. The mouse put his forepaw on the silver marble and rolled it away from the potted fern. Chickadee felt the tension in her spring and tried to calculate how many revolutions of movement it still offered her. She thought it would suffice.