The Bonedust Dolls Read online

  Other shoppers clamored for a taste of the dainty. I sucked mine down to the last bit of the leathery skin, which I folded in oilcloth and stowed for later analysis. The rest of the sbiten went well with a salmon-and-buckwheat pastry from the next aisle. I noted Dr. Orontius in line at a baked goods stall with a signboard in the shape of a cat sitting before a hearth.

  "I believe this should be a lucky one," Dr. Orontius said softly as he passed me the white paper box prettily tied with red string and marked with a gray cat.

  Wizards could be cryptic, so I stole a peek inside. The Merrymead rings of Whitethrone were apparently saffron dough dagged to reveal poppyseed filling, these sections forming the abdomens of Calistria's wasps, with gilded marzipan for the wings and bodies, and toasted pine nuts for eyes. Then I glanced at the signboard and nearly dropped my monocle. The tokens baked into Merrymead rings-the Whip of Vengeance, the Fan of Deception, the demon Kostchtchie, and all the rest-were usually tinted tin, sometimes gold-washed silver, occasionally true gold. Before Galt's Revolution, decadent nobles sometimes had them wrought with precious jewels, making the divinatory cakes a gambling game as well.

  The witches of Irrisen had done them one better, for the signboard promised that some trinkets bore actual witchcraft.

  Enchantments aplenty were on display in Whitethrone's market. Here an ice-eyed Jadwiga man modeled a traditional kaftan embroidered with folk motifs, hounds and horses and the like, only more threadbare and tatty. He ripped a loose applique off one sleeve and tossed it to the ground. All at once it sprang to life, becoming a tiny animal I first took for a white rat, but which rapidly expanded, increasing in size like an image projected on fog when the magic lantern is pulled back. A white mule then stood there in the snow, saddlebags and all, twitching its ears and looking at the witch in the kaftan both crossly and expectantly.

  Not every enchantment in the market was so quaint or charming, however. One crone sold severed hands, some ancient and mummified, others as fresh as when they were separated from their rightful owners. I flipped down the relevant lens of my monocle as I walked past, but was not surprised to see the bloody aura of necromancy.

  What I was not seeing were dolls.

  Stalls sold witches' wands and warriors' swords, wizards'staves, walking sticks and musical instruments, even an assortment of broomsticks and besoms. A white-haired matron held up on of the latter, swearing it would fly me through the air with the grace of a goose.

  Then I saw the mammoth. Two giants were admiring it, inspecting its ears and tusks and patting its shaggy flanks the way a person of normal stature would a pony. Then one lifted a young giantess, half again as tall as I am, and placed her atop it. She clutched a porcelain doll the size of a human child.

  I suppose I should have mentioned the monsters. Along with the giants, blue-skinned trolls and white wolves the size ofhorses mingled freely with the humans and dwarves and other denizens ofthe cold realm, cheerfully inspecting the bales of tea and other exotic wares of a caravan that could only have come over the Crown ofthe World.

  I was considering the wisdom of asking the giants where they had bought their daughter her doll when a gaggle of frost-blue goblins ran by, gabbling in delight, pointing out a sight that delighted me as much if not more: a Tian fireworks dealer. He was just setting up his display, and his wares were covered in the exquisite papers ofTian Xia. I recognized the familiar dragonfly rockets and witches'candles, a complicated Shelyn's rose pinwheel labeled Chrysanthemum Lady, siren fountains, sparklers, strings of firecrackers, and a large assortment of the fireball launching goblin brands that had the goblins so exited.

  Two guards with wolfhounds and wicked halberd sidled nearby. I surmised that these were from Whitethrone's storied Iron Guard, and that the alchemist had paid them to keep an eye on his wares.

  What I did not see were hop-frogs, the tamer and more festival-friendly version of the venomous toads Powdermaster Davin had taught me to make for the battlefield.

  An alchemist's trade is in secrets, but fortunately the alchemist spoke better Taldane than I did Tien. He was interested, but desired a demonstration.

  I set a hop-frog in the snow and touched the fuse with a sulfur-tipped Asmodeus match. It burned down and disappeared inside. For a moment, the frog sat there, doing nothing. Then the folded paper of its throat sack expanded and it let out a croak, to the delight of the goblins. This was followed by its mouth opening and its long pink blow- out tongue flicking in and out, the last time with a sparkling dragonfly attached with flames shooting out of its tail. The squibs in the frog's legs then caught fire, causing it to hop as per its name before finally retrieving the struggling dragonfly. Then the jewel in the frog's forehead went bright as the Eye of Aroden, and all at once it exploded-presumably not like Aroden, as I doubt the dead god vanished in a swarm of flaming fireflies and green smoke perfumed with lime blossoms.

  The smoke dissipated and the fireflies burned out in the snow, leaving scorch marks and cinders-and a crowd of delighted goblins, each of whom wanted to buy a dozen. More to the point, the alchemist wished to obtain my formula. While of course he could see the individual components, it would take a long while for him to reproduce the effect on his own. We then set to dickering, and he named one secret or another, all of which I either knew or were beyond my price, until at last he whispered, "You know perfume. But do you know the formula for the famous Tian Wash, an elixir for the banishment of evil?"

  That I did not, and I imagined that in a place like Irrisen, banishment of evil might be exceptionally useful.

  We traded notes, and I had just tucked my formulary back inside my greatcoat when I heard the scream.

  It was not a human sound, but rather the sound we in Galt knew as Liberty's Cry. Wolves howled or whined and pawed their ears, but I looked high into the air and saw the blue plume of smoke mixed with the light snowfall.

  Soldiers of my regiment used Blue Liberties as signal flares when they were in distress. I had made sure to entrust one to Orlin.

  The stalls of the market, however, were a maze.

  I looked at the goblins, grinning at me with their perpetual expres sions of wicked delight. "A hop-frog for whoever takes me to where that flare came from."

  The goblins grinned even wider.

  Chapter Two

  The Cocoa Pot

  We ran down an aisle and an alleyway, cut through a stall selling painted boxes and other knickknacks, ran past a regiment of the Iron Guard relaxing around a tea stand's samovar, and came out onto a wide boulevard on the edge of Market Square. Winds funneled by the high buildings gusted down the round white cobbles, fluttering the backs of the tents and blasting snow in stinging bursts. The street was almost deserted except for a few young Jadwiga coming from a costume party and a gang of trolls leading a group of children in chains.

  "Here!" cried the goblins. "Screamy rocket come from here!"

  "Here!" cried one, reaching into the snow, so cold it flowed like sand . She held up a spent match.

  I tossed her the promised hop-frog. She squealed in delight.

  "Let go of me!" Orlin cried.

  Near the trolls, an old woman wearing a dark dress and a wicked-looking knife at her belt held my brother by the ear. "A foreign child!" she cackled. "All on his own. Will anyone notice ifhe goes missing, I wonder?"

  "Just wait till my brother finds you! " Orlin threatened .

  "But he's not here," the crone hissed. "All that's here is this stick." She shook a broken broom handle under his nose, "and it'll beat your hide black as your hair if you don't march with the other slaves!"

  I was in fact "here," but neither the crone nor Orlin had noticed . The snow was beginning to swirl around them, making their ghostly faces appear and disappear in the whirling flakes.

  I believe I mentioned my brother's "metaphysical peculiarities." These tend to display most strongly when he is in distress.

  "I'll beat you, you ugly hag!" Orlin reached for her stick, but she cackle
d and held it out of reach. I reached for a bomb . Then the broom wrenched itself out of her hand. The woman turned and the broom handle hit her in the forehead with a sharp crack!

  Spectral snickers echoed from the shopfronts, seeming to issue from the cobbles themselves. The hag stood there, stunned. She glanced up the street to where the Iron Guards stood taking their tea, then back to Orlin, hovering a foot above the ground . His ear dripped blood onto the snowy cobbles.

  Then her stick hit her in the face again. "Mercy! " she cried, falling to her knees. "Mercy, young master! How was I to know you were a witch child? Your hair is dark, and your accent foreign!"

  The goblins laughed maliciously. "Guards! Tell guards!"

  "No," said a thin but authoritative voice. "Someone much worse has already heard."

  One of the young Jadwiga stepped forward. With the turban on his head, the white monkey on his shoulder, and the extraordinarily besequined vest, harem pants, and curl-toed slippers, he could only be Abu-Fazim, the famous rug merchant from The Tales of Katapesh. But he said, "I am Poskarl Elvanna."

  "And I am his cousin, Irynya Elvanna," said a maiden in the astoundingly befeathered gown. It had to be some modiste's conception of the Parrot Princess from the same tales. She had even accessorized it with a rainbow colored parrot.

  "I'm Olya Elvanna! " the parrot chortled. While I did not think it likely that a parrot was a member of Irrisen's royal family, this was undoubtedly Irynya's familiar, so it could claim what it liked.

  The white monkey, which was wearing a tiny fez, chattered and waved an admonishing finger at the hag.

  Somewhere in this, my brother calmed down. At least his feet now touched the cobbles. The broomstick still floated high in the air.

  The trolls shuffled their huge feet and the line of shackled children looked on in mute horror. "This is a grave crime," Poskarl intoned. "How do you intend to make amends?"

  "Mercy, good sire!" cried the woman. "I am but a poor crone! I possess little gold and these thralls are all spoken for save one . And she is but a worthless thing I was going to sell to the Bone Mill..."

  "Could this creature serve as a whipping girl?" Poskarl mused, stroking his wispy beard.

  "If-if the witch child would wish it..." The hag turned to Orlin, her eyes plaintive.

  "You'll sell her to the Bone Mill if I don't?" My brother stood aghast. "What's a Bone Mill?"

  "It is where those who serve no use in our ancestress's realm can serve some," Irynya explained.

  The trolls licked their lips.

  "Yes," Orlin said quickly. "Yes. She'll be my whipping girl. Now."

  The hag gasped like a drowning woman. "Don't just stand there!" she snarled at the trolls. "Unchain her! Unchain her now!" The trolls hastened to comply.

  The woman dragged a girl forward, tugging back her hood. "Its parents called it 'Pyatinka.' They sold it for a bushel of moldy wheat."

  Pyatinka was a pale strawberry blonde with large eyes a green so light they were almost gray. A few freckles dusted her cheeks.

  "It doesn't speak, but it does cry. Sometimes."

  "She's mine now," said Orlin.

  "And so she is," said Poskarl smoothly, "but a slave minder is little use without her goad." He looked pointedly toward the stick, still floating in the air, then at Odin's new whipping girl. "Unless you care to make use ofit first?"

  Reluctantly, Orlin floated the stick back into the old woman's eager grasp. "Why would I?" he said coldly. "I've done nothing wrong."

  Poskarl and his cousin laughed. The parrot and the monkey joined in, followed quickly by the goblins and the trolls-possibly even some of the children, though they no doubt would pay for that later.

  I patted my brother's back. "Well done."

  The crone and the trolls retreated with their charges as I extended my hand to the Jadwiga. "I am Norret Gautier of Galt. I believe you've already met my brother, Orlin."

  Poskarl Elvanna laughed. "Well met." He pointedly ignored my hand. "Allow me to introduce my cousin's lovely friend, Valya Morgannan. Oh, and the big lout is Kyevgeny, her 'little' brother." He gestured to a huge man dressed in an equally huge white bearskin cloak with an owl-feathered mantle and beaked hood.

  I am tall enough myself that it is rare for me to look up to see another man's eyes, let alone look him straight in the chest. He leaned down and his mittens enveloped my hand in a bone-crushing grip. "Welcome to Whitethrone."

  His voice was unexpectedly light for such a large man, and I tried to place where I had heard the name Morgannan before . It was not Elvanna, the current dynasty-perhaps it was one ofthe other Jadwiga families who had ruled Irrisen in the years between Baba Yaga's centennial returns.

  Valya moved forward in a Galtan walking gown of sprigged muslin, her feet in sandals, her ice-blonde hair done up in a pre-Revolutionary band ornamented with artificial cherry blossoms and a stuffed song thrush. She appeared older than the others, though still somewhat younger than mysel£ I was uncertain what her costume portrayed, but she was certainly another witch, her attire far too slight for the season. It also matched the porcelain doll she bore in her arms, a fashion doll made in the form of a maiden. "And this is Madenya," she introduced her doll, "and Koliadki," she added with a touch to her headband.

  The thrush twisted its head and peered at me upside down. Another familiar.

  The monkey chattered angrily until Poskarl laughed. "And this is Lychee, the wise and learned, a great scholar among the snow monkeys of Minkai."

  I was reminded of the time the members of my regiment decided to name their weapons, until Citizen Cedrine put a stop to it.

  Then the child beside Orlin spoke. "I am Tinka," she said, and promptly fainted.

  "She is bone- chilled," said Kyevgeny, looking a bit cold himself. Even his monstrous costume or shamanic garb could not compete with witchcraft or alchemy or Gahan knitting and white-hot rage. "The wind here is too great for those without witchcraft. We'd best get her to somewhere warm unless you want to take her to the Bone Mill immediately."

  Poskarl chuckled. "Do you have any suggestions?"

  "The Cocoa Pot is nearby." Kyevgeny picked up the child easily. "Follow me."

  He loped off with great strides. Orlin ran after-half, I think, from the cold, half to keep track of his new ward.

  Poskarl and Irynya looked bemused but seemed to have nothing better to do, and followed at a more sedate pace.

  Valya linked arms with me and led me up the street. "Cocoa goes wonderfully with Merrymead cake." She touched a bare finger to the red string on my bakery box, then added conspiratorially, "The Gray Cat bakes for the Royal Palace, so Poskarl should have no cause for complaint, though he always does."

  I didn't know what to say, so of course said nothing.

  The Cocoa Pot was a large white building edged with blue. Its signboard displayed a peculiar porcelain pot with the handle set at a ninety-degree angle to the spout, like a teapot crossed with a coffeepot.

  More of these pots were in use inside. Galt's wars had made imports unpredictable at best, and the chocolatiers' art had suffered accordingly, but Citizen Cedrine had nonetheless made certain I understood the bean's properties and how to compose potions as bonbons in case I encountered a reliable source.

  I did not know whether the Hidden Gardens were amazingly abundant or if it was the result of Irrisen's eon long trading alliances and stockpiles, but there was no shortage of cocoa on display. Blue-haired gnomes wearing crimson felt caps tended the machinery, the roasters, the winnowers, the granite millstone and conching rollers, and the coal-powered furnaces that fueled the devices. The air was warm and deliciously perfumed with cocoa.

  A brass-edged glass wall separated the chocolate-making side from the shop and parlor. Tables and sofas clustered around several fireplaces and potbellied iron stoves with cheerful isinglass windows.

  Kyevgeny had placed Tinka on a fur rug before one of these and removed her mittens, and was now rubbing her tiny hands between his
own huge paws. His owl-beaked hood was back, revealing a beardles s youth, his hair gold rather than platinum. His eyes were the same striking lapis blue as those of the other Jadwiga.

  "Back at the palace, we have wood fires," Poskarl sniffed.

  "They have wood fires here too." Valya pointed to neat stacks of firewood and a slate listing prices for each type. I polished my monocle, wondering whether condensation had added a few decimal places. It had not.

  Poskarl held his nose in the air, disdainfully regarding the coffered ceiling that resembled an inverted chocolate mold. "I do not recall this as an establishment to run a tab."

  For you, Irynya mouthed to Valya, and both girls giggled.

  Orlin stood before me. "Where are your smelling salts?"

  "Here." I removed a vinaigrette from my bandolier. "Let me administer them." I knelt down and uncorked the vial. The active ingredient of sal volatile is spirits of hartshorn, but I had adulterated this with camphor and tarragon vinegar. It had the desired effect. The child promptly inhaled, then sat up. Then she began to weep.

  "Why are you crying?" asked Orlin.

  "You're a witch. You're going to beat me..."

  Orlin looked shocked, then grim. "No," he said. "No one is ever going to beat you again." He picked up a sliver of wood from on of the stacks and pushed it through one of the iron stove's air intakes. "As this burns, so may the hag's stick burn."

  The twig blazed alight on the other side of the isinglass.

  I was impressed, and s o were the Jadwiga. I doubted Orlin had the power to actually effect such a curse, but he had been learning the principles of sympathetic magic from observing Dr. Orontius, and his conventions were sound.

  There was an exchange oflooks, then at last Irynya said to Poskarl, "Well, you wanted firewood."

  "That I did," Poskarl laughed. "And now I want cocoa. And some of that cake he's carrying."

  I smiled. 'Tm certain that can be arranged."

  "I'll get the cocoa," offered Kyevgeny.