The Bonedust Dolls Read online

  The golden-horned goat promptly yawned and bowed its head, eyes shut. The peacock folded its tail, the canopy collapsing, the benches disappearing beneath the ruffled feathers of the lap blankets, then tucked its head beside one wing. Both dwindled.

  The tall footman retrieved a toy goat and an albino peacock feather fan, presenting them to Byanka.

  She led the way inside the tower, which was indeed made of ivory. Mwangi hippo-tooth doorknobs. Walrus tusk candle sconces. Beautifully scrimshawed paneling. A tinkling of the ivories as a duet for harpsichord and pianoforte drifted from floors above. And a grand staircase made from the tusks of a mammoths' graveyard spiraled around a central chandelier fashioned from a thousand spiraled ivory horns. A thousand alicorns.

  I nearly fainted, from both the enormity of the wealth represented and the crime. A thousand unicorns murdered for their horns.

  Orlin, returned to life with unicorn ivory, stared at the chandelier, stricken. Some of the horns were burning.

  "Oh good," Byanka said softly, her words punctuated by a harpsichord solo, "we had enough spermaceti." She moved behind Orlin and placed her mittens on his shoulders. "You must think us terribly extravagant, my dear, but I as sure you, we Morgannans are not that rich." She gave me a knowing wink.

  She wanted me to explain. Correction: she wanted Arjan Devore to explain.

  I racked my brains. Arjan had written a great deal about unicorns, as they were part ofhis armorial bearings. Then I remembered.

  "Those are narwhal tusks," I told Orlin, "and twisted spermaceti candles, both from the Erutaki whalers atop the Crown of the World."

  "There's quite a trade in false alicorns," Byanka said. "And they do make a lovely chandelier."

  "Isn't it a crime to kill a unicorn?" asked Orlin.

  "Without a permit, certainly," said Kyevgeny. "Unicorns are reserved for the Crown."

  "Please don't bring it up around Irynya," begged Valya. "You wouldn't believe how she goes on about her family's unicorn hunts. She hasn't been to one since she was eight!"

  "Ah," Byanka warned, raising a finger. "Even an unfavored Elvanna is still more favored than us. Never forget that, my dear."

  "Yes, grandmother." Valya bowed her head, chastened, making her familiar flutter aloft.

  "Tea is in the gallery?" Byanka asked the thrush.

  "Yes, grandmother! " Koliadki chirped.

  "Marvelous. Let everyone know."

  The thrush winged his way up the grand staircase to the next floor. We followed.

  Halfway up the stairs, the music stopped.

  When we came onto the landing, I stopped as well. Around us were a thousand dolls, all sitting in doll-sized chairs, posed with tiny teapots or little plates of dainties. One sat before a child's pianoforte, another before a virginal-a tabletop harpsichord-both composed of ivory.

  Then I blinked. There were somewhat fewer dolls than I thought. Mirrors paneled the gallery's walls, yellowed by centuries of candlesmoke, reflecting the narwhal-tusk chandelier, multiplying everything. Four oriel windows, set at the cardinal points, provided panoramic views of Whitethrone. The one to the west showed the sun setting behind a snow-capped building. The fireplaces flanking the window seat were lit, isinglass screens before them.

  A few human-sized furnishings stood nearby, as well as one Kyevgeny- size chair built from sturdy whale teeth. Koliadki perched on the finial of a three-tiered tray bearing pastries and finger sandwiches beside a silver samovar and an ivory basket stacked with golden pears.

  I wondered where the servants had gone, particularly the musicians. I had not recognized the composition. I as sumed one of the mirrors concealed a door leading to a servants' passageway.

  Kyevgeny loped to the refreshments table. He had almost touched the topmost pear when an ivory walking stick tapped the inlaid ivory floor resoundingly.

  He sheepishly took back his hand.

  Byanka turned to me. "I find that dolls make the perfect children. Always quiet and mindful, never needing to be told twice what's expected."

  I nodded then paused, seeing a movement, a reflection of a reflection.

  A soldier learns to be watchful. I turned and locked eyes with a doll. Not a Jadwiga with lapis eyes and silver hair, nor an Ulfen child with blonde or ginger locks and eyes of turquoise or jade. This was a Gahan doll, her eyes hazel like my natural shade, her chestnut tresses loose in artless dishabille. Her face was one I had seen before, a mixture of the features of Arjan Devore-or myself-and the face of his wife.

  "Anais ... " I breathed softly, snapping my fingers both from recognition and force of habit. The duke's formulary appeared in my hand, summoned forth from the enchantments worked into the glove.

  I acted as if this action were unremarkable, for why shouldn't Duke Devore consult his formulary?

  I flipped through the relevant sections, rites for the alchemical wedding of Anais and Arjan, the white queen and the red king. A diagram of the Crapaudine, the toad's diamond set on the back ofAnais's glove, and the Unicorn's Carbuncle, the legendary gem on Arjan's. Both donated a chip, the shards united via intarsia, the gemcutter's art, forming a diamond-ruby doublet-the heart of their "magical child." Beside the duke's watercolor of the babe, I perceived the faintest silverpoint script, a note in the duchess's hand. A name: "Emilie."

  "You recognize her," Byanka said approvingly. "I was worried. Last you were here, your wits were fading. After you asked for our arts to bewitch your glove and carbuncle, they faded further."

  Bewitched? I had assumed wizardry or sorcery. Then I remembered Dr. Orontius's words about how the witches of Irrisen could take a shard of soul and hide it in an exquisite jewel, as Baba Yaga had done with Kostchtchie.

  Or Arjan Devore and the ruby in his glove.

  I then realized than Arjan and Anais had both taken fragments of their jewels, chips of chips of souls, joining them to create a new jewel. A new soul.

  "Papa?" said the doll. "At long last my papa has come for me?"

  There was a gasping of breath, as if a hundred dolls had opened their mouths then stayed silent.

  "Yes, Emilie," Byanka answered. "Your papa has returned. And as it has been over fifty years, I will overlook you speaking before outsiders. This once." She glanced to the assembled dolls. "This man is an old client. He has paid to know our secret. This boy is a witch likewise permitted. This girl?" Byanka paused, musing. "Well, she knows. We shall simply have to deal with this. Feel free to speak, children."

  "What a happy occasion!" Madenya exclaimed, still in Valya's arms. "For Emilie, I mean," she added quickly to me. 'Tm so sorry you lost your wife."

  "As am I," I said, unsure. "She was... a remarkable woman."

  "All women are," proclaimed Madenya. "I raised Valya myself after the poor dear lost her mother. At least until we got Klaufi to help." She turned to Kyevgeny. "Where is Klaufi? He should be here!"

  "He's in the theater working on a special project."

  "I know," chirped Koliadki. "I sent Holgrim to fetch him!"

  A half-eaten pear fell to the floor with a splat. "You did what?!" Kyevgeny boomed.

  "He's your valet!" the thrush chirped. "I showed him where you hid the key!"

  "Did he wear the cloak and slippers?"

  "What cloak and slippers ?"

  "No!" roared Kyevgeny, rushing up the stairs.

  Everyone exchanged glances, apparently as confused as me.

  Then Tinka screamed, pointing.

  The situation became clearer and exponentially more horrifying as a hundred Tinka-sized blue and-yellow spiders appeared in the mirrors. One descended by a silken thread down the stairwell.

  Byanka pointed her ivory cane and hissed two words in a language I didn't recognize. Neither sounded particularly vile, as curses go, but the spider immediately shivered and shrank, losing legs, becoming drabber and furrier until all that was left at the end of the thread was an extremely surprised chipmunk.

  "Children," Byanka ordered, "grab your knives and f
ollow me." The dolls did.

  Chapter Five

  Web of Secrets

  At first there was a mad dash up the stairs. Byanka led the troop of dolls, winding her way up, cursing another blue-and-yellow spider into a chipmunk that Murzik chased down a hallway.

  I followed. I have charged into battle alongside dwarves or halflings, their heads coming up to my chest or waist, but not dolls . Few reached as high as my knees. It would not do to trip over one's comrades . Luckily, the spiral stairs were wider at one side than the other. I ran up the center while the dolls took the portion toward the inner bannister. I felt like a giant among halflings, even though the stairs to my left were grand enough to accommodate ogres and trolls.

  One brown-haired doll ran onto the steps in front of me, but before I tripped over her, she leapt up. "I will help you, Papa!" she cried, clambering to my shoulder as familiarly as Poskarl's monkey.

  "Hold tight, Emilie! " I steadied her with my left hand, the duke's ruby winking on the back. I dimly noted that the "magical child" of Arjan and Anais Devore was costumed as a Gaitan shepherdess , or at least a pre Revolutionary fantasy of one, all furbelows and frippery, ribbons and lace. Having known actual shepherdesses, I knew the only accurate detail was her crook, which some shepherdesses did decorate with bows. Emilie had tied a three-pronged lemon fork to the end of hers , forming a makeshift trident.

  I spotted a spider behind a potted palm. Partially camouflaged by the striped shadows cast by the chandelier's twisted candles , it lurked there, waiting. I dropped a lens and peered closer. The arachnid's brindled markings were like indigo inkblots on saffron silk.

  All at once the threads tied together: Kyevgeny's shimmering silk screen in the shadow theater; the shiver laced cocoa; Silvertooth's insinuations.

  "It's a dream spider," I warned the dolls . "Don't let it lure you into its web. The strands are drugged."

  "We can't be drugged," a porcelain crone pointed out.

  "Poisoned, then."

  " Silly Papa!" exclaimed Emilie, patting my cheek with her porcelain hand. "We can't be poisoned either!"

  "That should prove useful..." I reached to my bandolier. "Use this."

  I unstoppered a wide-mouthed flask, the aperture suitable to accommodate knives or sword points.

  Lemon forks fit too.

  Emilie hurled her crook like a fishing spear, a trail of ribbon spooling out behind. The prongs flew through a palm frond's slots and pierced the spider's mottled flesh. It spasmed for a moment, then froze, paralyzed.

  "What is that?" Byanka inquired icily.

  "A dream spider," I repeated. "A monstrous arachnid from the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse."

  "Interesting. Potentially useful. I meant the poison."

  "Oh," I said, "giant wasp venom, concentrated, adulterated with venom from the tarantula hawk."

  She raised a pale eyebrow.

  "Not some wizard's hybrid monstrosity-a wasp from Qadira. Apricot wings, ebony body, absolutely excruciating venom. The Poisoner's Guild ofDaggermark has it smuggled through Galt. But it still serves its original purpose as a paralytic agent for arachnids." I couldn't quite suppress a shudder. "I've had unpleasant encounters with spiders before."

  "Did you bring enough to share?"

  "Indeed."

  Flatware was envenomed, and while I had never considered what a gang of dolls wielding ivory-handled cake knives would do to a giant spider, I had seen wasps swarm one before.

  The effect was much the same.

  We continued upward, past a schoolroom filled with tiny chairs and a slate bearing the word DEPORTMENT in pretty cursive script, past a miniature confectioner with jars of nonpareils and boiled sweets, past a hospital with pots of paste and sawdust alongside a shattered porcelain arm, and ascended a few more floors.

  The high doors at the end of a landing stood open, shadows and darknes s within.

  Byanka touched the knob of her cane to an oil lamp in a niche, and it blazed alight with blue witchfire. It floated out of its niche, spinning like a gyroscope, and assumed a gentle orbit over Byanka's shoulder.

  Valya touched her finger to the lamp in the opposite niche, causing it to glow a soft rose.

  Orlin took a candle stub out ofhis tinderbox, showed it to Tinka, then fit it in the lid's holder. He saved a match by having it float over to the chandelier.

  I borrowed it on the way back. While my army-issue bullseye lantern may not have been as convenient as witchcraft, it did have the advantage of a directional beam.

  I scanned the doors first. The twin ivory panels opened out, the beam revealing scrimshawed images of princes in kaftans and princesses in kokoshniks and sarafans skating on the surface of a frozen lake. I then directed the beam inside, revealing a forest festooned with opalescent cobwebs.

  Not a real forest. The trees were paper-mache and pasteboard cutouts . What appeared to be a beautiful trembling aspen was in fact a collection of bleached vertebrae and finger bones wired together in semblance of a tree with painted leather leaves . A clutter of newly hatched spiderlings the size of plums seethed over it.

  We entered. Large marionettes dangled from the ceiling like halflings swinging from the gallows: witches and woodcutters, winter wolf pup s and dancing bear cubs, even a wooden hut the size of an outhouse with limply dangling chicken feet. We moved through the forest of puppetry and scenery, avoiding contact with the shimmering iridescent webs.

  I then beheld the stage and a great silver screen glowing with an incandescent illumination. On it was a shadow spider so immense it filled half the screen, locked in mortal combat with the shadow of an equally immense warrior, his cloak flying, the blade of his axe striking again and again. The sounds of battle accompanied this sight, but were more muffled than such a titanic struggle should warrant.

  The shadow titan's axe struck again, but this time it was accompanied by a terrific boom!

  I spun, for the sound had come from behind me.

  I shone my lantern back the way we came. One of the two- dimensional trees lay toppled over. I saw a quaking of the bony aspen's leaves, so I aimed the beam up.

  A tall figure pushed the uppermost branches out of his way as he ducked-not downward, but upward. The figure dashed acros s the ceiling upside down, dressed in an assas sin's shadowy silks. I did my best to follow with my light as he drew a cutlass and struck. A moment later, a sandbag hit the stage as he grabbed hold of another set. He rode them down and the silver screen rode up.

  I quickly closed my right eye and dropped all my smoked lenses on the left. Silhouetted before the unshielded glare of a blazing limelight stood a spider, not titanic, but almost as large as me, locked in battle with a halfling dressed like Kostchtchie from Kyevgeny's puppet show. His fur cloak flew wildly, the ends of the otterskin wrappings on his wrists and j oints did likewise, and the limelight dazzled acros s a golden tore worn on his broad bare chest. He swung his great axe with mighty thews again and again-yet they did not quite move as mighty thews ought.

  I then realized this was because they were not flesh, but porcelain. The halfling barbarian was a halfling-size doll-an Ulfen warrior who bore a more than pas sing resemblance to Kyevgeny.

  "Oh Klaufi! Be careful!" called Madenya, riding Valya's shoulder as Emilie did mine.

  Then the black- cloaked figure's hood fell back and Kyevgeny's blond mane shook free.

  "Kyevgeny, you too..." Valya clenched her hands before her chin in an attitude of fright and concern.

  Byanka pursed her lips . I guessed she had spat her last curse.

  It would be a distance to hurl a dart, but fortunately an alchemist is not without resources . In this case, substances as common as soda ash and vinegar, mixed in my mouth and catalyzed with spittle, produced an excess of air to jet through my blowgun.

  Giant spiders scream remarkably like stuck pigs when stung with tarantula hawk venom. Of course, rather than two evil beady eyes glaring at you, spiders have eight. I decided what was needed was more darts. I conf
iscated the shepherdes s 's crook from Emilie, still tied with the lemon fork. This I envenomed again, placed into the blowgun, and shot with considerable force. The expanding gas puffed out my cheeks like those of Calistria on Irynya's scurrilous little fan charm.

  The lemon fork's tines skewered a lemon-colored blotch on the spider's abdomen. The monster screamed again, then trailed off into a gurgling froth as it froze in place, ready for a tarantula hawk to lay her eggs in it.

  "Where's Holgrim?" Kyevgeny demanded of the halfling- size doll who I as sumed to be Klaufi.

  "There! " Klaufi pointed to a shadowy corner of the ceiling and what I had as sumed to be another cobwebbed puppet. My lantern revealed it to be a boy.

  Kyevgeny dashed up one side of the proscenium arch and cut his valet free, swirling his cloak and rappelling down via silken threads from the cloak itself.

  We ran to where he descended. I didn't have to tell him to strip the cobwebs. His hands, gloved with more black silk, bundled the webbing with supernatural alacrity. "Holgrim..."

  "He's poisoned," Orlin declared unnecessarily.

  " Someone fetch a leech jar," Byanka snapped. "Valya, you know-"

  "I have this." I knelt down. Holgrim looked like a younger version of Ermutt, his hair already starting to thin. I placed my glove on the boy's face. I felt an electric tingle through my fingertips as the duke's glove leeched the venom, the unicorn's carbuncle on the back swirling like an opal as it consumed the spider's poison before subsiding to its usual sanguine hue.

  "Help him," begged Kyevgeny. "Wake him up! "

  I felt Holgrim's skin through the fine leather. He was still warm, but the room was too, pleasantly heated by some means. The ceiling would be nearly tropical given the physics of heat. I felt behind his ear for the pulse of life but found none.

  I f he was asleep, he was not dreaming. The eyes move beneath the eyelids when a man dreams.

  I pulled them open and shone my lantern in, looking for any response from the pupil, a contraction of the iris. Holgrim's were pale blue-gray, the color of twilight on a frozen lake. They did not move. When I released his eyelids, they stayed open.