The Golden Yarn Read online

  “Yes, but only from afar.”

  And each time he’d thought the same: She was even more beautiful than everyone said, and Kami’en was a fool to have chosen the dollface over her.

  “They say her moths are her dead lovers.”

  Heavens, he never knew.

  After that, the boy just stared into the flames until Nerron finally sent him to bed. He could barely walk as he went into the hut. He was clearly not used to sitting in a saddle for hours. Where had his brother kept him?

  In another world, Nerron.

  When he wasn’t dreaming of killing Jacob Reckless, Nerron tried to imagine what that other world looked like.

  He made sure the Pup was asleep before he searched his backpack. The boy had a pouch with him, which he kept touching so often it had to contain something precious. Nerron supposed it held some trinket, a keepsake from his love, dried flowers, or a lock of hair. At first the Pup had kept the pouch under his shirt, but after the rain had soaked it a couple of times, he’d not quite so stealthily tucked it into his backpack.

  The first things Nerron dug out were not very exciting: a compass, a knife, a few gold coins, spare clothes. But then his fingers found the pouch. It was a swindlesack! Now, there was a surprise. Nerron reached inside. A wooden handle, metal fittings. A bowstring as smooth as glass.

  Embarrassing how childishly fast his heart began to beat.

  Impossible. But the swindlesack gave up its contents, and there it was. In his lap. The most powerful weapon in this world.

  Nerron closed his eyes for a while. All those months, the sleepless nights, the helpless fantasies of revenge, the vows to peel the skin off Jacob Reckless’s double-crossing bones. Did the Pup steal the crossbow from his brother? Who cares, Nerron? The jeers he’d had to endure since his return from the Dead City... And how they were going to squirm before him. The onyx, Crookback, the Walrus, all the highborn thieves of this world. Even Hentzau would be on his knees. Oh, and the Bastard would make them beg. He would take their gold, their gifts, their castles, their daughters, and then he would give the crossbow to Kami’en so the King of the Goyl would never again have to worry about Albion or Crookback, or about the shadow King of the onyx. They’d be dead. All of them.

  Nerron looked toward the hut.

  Unbelievable. He had fallen for the boy’s show of innocence. But that was over now. No more reprieve for Jacob Reckless’s little brother. And as far as the Jade Goyl was concerned—to hell with him. Soon enough, Kami’en wouldn’t need any bodyguards anymore.

  Nerron pulled the swindlesack over the crossbow. Had he ever been happier? No, happy wasn’t the right word. Exulted, yes, that was more like it. Rewarded. Triumphant. Forget the Jade Goyl. Hail the Bastard. He is the best. Soon every Goyl would

  be whispering it.

  The story of how Nerron regained the crossbow would need some work, of course. How should he begin his revenge? He could lure the Drekavac into the hut with a trail of blood, then send the Pup’s bones to the one-legged cook to give to his brother.

  A breeze brushed through the clearing. Too warm for this cool night. Nerron felt it on his skin as though their fire had begun to breathe.

  He tucked the swindlesack into his jacket and reached for his pistol.

  There. Under those trees. Something was reflecting the fire like glass. The flickering light outlined two bodies, which even Nerron’s sharp Goyl eyes could barely make out. Leaves and trees were mirrored on their limbs, the horses, the fire, the darkness of the night. But then they grew skin and hair.

  What are you waiting for, Nerron? Take the crossbow and run. But he wasn’t sure turning his back on these creatures was a good idea.

  Whatever they were, they seemed uncertain which face to show to this world. They seemed to have many. How they stared at him with their mirror-eyes. As though it was he and not they who didn’t belong here. Then the girl approached him. She was beautiful, like a wasp or a flesh-eating plant. Her hands were still glass, her fingernails silver.

  Where is he?” she asked with a voice that sounded unsettlingly human.

  Glass humans? Were they some kind of local phantom?

  Nerron pointed to the hut. Whoever they were looking for, the Pup would hopefully distract them long enough to give the Bastard time to run. Though it was annoying that he’d again lose his shot at revenge. Nerron carefully took a step back. The horses were just a few yards away.

  The girl disappeared into the hut.

  To Nerron’s dismay, the other one made no move to follow her. To the contrary. He suddenly seemed to have eyes only for Nerron. The Bastard had met many terrifying creatures in his life, but the glass boy, now walking calmly toward him as though he had all the time in the world, made him feel a new kind of fear. Maybe it was the eyes, which looked like colored glass. His clothes were also strange, like the Pup’s when Nerron had first met him in Schwanstein, but then suddenly they were changing until they were an exact replica of Nerron’s own clothes. Saurian leather, but made of glass.

  Then Whatever-He-Was stopped, and Nerron could see his own face in the glass pupils.

  “Give me the swindlesack.”

  Damn. What did this creature know about the crossbow? He held out a hand. The face he now wore was even more boyish than Will’s. If it weren’t for those eyes. And those hands of glass and silver.

  “You can have the sack,” Nerron replied. “But its content is mine.”

  The reply was a smile that was a dozen smiles.

  Whatever-He-Was leaned forward until his cheek touched Nerron’s face. His skin was warm, as smooth as glass. “I can turn your heart to silver,” he whispered in Nerron’s ear. “Or glass. Which would you prefer? I’ve done it with human skin, fur, even insects, but never with speckled stone. I can’t wait.”

  He reached into Nerron’s jacket and pulled out the swindlesack. The saurian leather became covered in silver, which disappeared like frost as soon as Whatever-He-Was pulled his hand away.

  “What are you?” Nerron was surprised his tongue hadn’t turned to silver. And his heart was still beating, if a little too fast.

  “You have to ask the one who made us. He calls me Seventeen.”

  “Made you?” Nerron couldn’t take his eyes off the sack. He’d just been the king of the world, and now he was back to being the Bastard. He clenched his empty hands. He wanted to peel all the faces off Seventeen. Twice found, twice lost.

  “He also made the crossbow,” said Seventeen.

  Nonsense. That was an Alderelf weapon. What next? The return of the Dragons? And the Giants?

  To Nerron’s surprise, Seventeen tucked the swindlesack back into Will’s backpack. Then he eyed Nerron as though he wanted to copy his soul. “I’m thinking I should kill you. He doesn’t like thieves.”

  He... What the lava?..Nerron stumbled away from the touch of the silver fingernails.

  “Wait!” he panted. “The message for the Fairy. The Pup’s delivering it for him, right? The one who made you? Tell him if he wants his message to reach her, he’ll need the Bastard. Or do you really think the boy can find her on his own?”

  Seventeen looked at Nerron’s stone skin as though he was dying to find out what it would look like in silver. But then he lowered his hand.

  Breathe, Nerron. He could still feel the glass fingers on his skin.

  “Good. Why not?” Seventeen said. “I can always kill you later. But you make sure he finds her soon. This world’s not good for us.”

  Nerron didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about. He just knew he didn’t want a silver heart, or a glass one.

  Seventeen eyed his own fingers as though looking for traces of onyx. “None of my faces are like yours. Are you also different inside?”

  Interesting question. Seventeen was intriguing. As intriguing as a viper, Nerron.

  “Different from what? Different from the snail skins you pretend to be? Oh yes. Very different.”

  Seventeen changed his fac
e. He seemed to do that a lot when he was thinking. He had quite an impressive collection. None of them appeared particularly happy as he looked up at the two moons.

  “I don’t understand why they want to go back.”

  They. Back. This really did sound like the lost Elves. The only thing Nerron knew about the Alderelves was that they supposedly once built their silver palaces at depths where even Goyl skin melted.

  “Back from where?” Stop it, Nerron. But Seventeen hadn’t heard him anyway. He was looking with disdain at the crumbling hut where Will was sleeping.

  “Look at that. It’s all so primitive. Nothing but dirt and decay. The other world is so much better.”

  “The other world?”

  Nerron forgot about the crossbow. His revenge. The Pup.

  “Yes. You’ve never been?” A fly was stupid enough to land on Seventeen’s brow. His hand caught it as quickly as a toad’s tongue.

  “Show me how to get there and I’ll find the Dark Fairy for you.” Nerron hated the obvious longing in his voice. Another world. His greatest desire, for as long as he could remember. And the reason why Jacob Reckless had been able to steal from him. Because of his silly boyhood dream.

  Seventeen had noticed. Pull yourself together, Nerron.

  “It’s behind the mirror, right?” At least he had his voice under control again.

  “Yes.” Seventeen opened his hand. The fly was now silver. “You said you’re different on the inside. What about your soul? Sixteen is worried she doesn’t have one. Do you have one?”

  This was getting better and better.

  “Admit it, you don’t know.” Seventeen dropped the fly in the grass. “Because there’s no such thing as a soul. I keep telling her, but she won’t believe me.”

  He listened into the night as though the wind were whispering a message. Then he turned to black glass.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “Watch out for Sixteen. She has quite a temper.”

  Then he was gone. Or was he? Nerron couldn’t be sure. He stared into the night, but his eyes found nothing. He bent down and picked up the silver fly. The frozen insect was so perfect it would have made any silversmith give up his trade in shame. Nerron threw it in the dwindling fire.

  “Watch out for Sixteen.”

  He hesitated, but then he went to the hut.

  ***

  Nerron was used to his skin making him invisible, but Sixteen immediately looked up as he stepped through the door.

  She was kneeling next to Will.

  “I thought my brother killed you. He likes to kill.”

  Brother. Nerron doubted very much that these two had come from a mother’s womb.

  Sixteen’s silver fingernails were sheathed in leather gloves. She touched Will’s face.

  Eyes of glass.

  “Your…brother and I have an arrangement.”

  She just looked at him. Nerron felt like he was talking to a knife. A perfectly wrought dagger in a scabbard of colored glass.

  She leaned over Will. She eyed him like a cat eyes a bowl of milk. “It’s too bad. I’m supposed to show him only her face. But I have so many that are much prettier.”

  The face she was wearing now was so beautiful it made him forget her silver fingernails.

  “Go,” she said. “I want to be alone with him.”

  Nerron decided to heed Seventeen’s warning. He turned around in the doorway and, out of the corner of his eye, saw Sixteen lean down to kiss Will. The Pup was going to have pleasant dreams.

  War

  Three days. The mountains on the horizon were already part of Ukraina, and Fox and Jacob still hadn’t caught up with Will. Fox had found what she suspected were Will’s and the Bastard’s tracks, hidden among many others on the unpaved road, and they’d been less than twenty-four hours old.

  The Goyl had halted their conquest on the Ukrainian border, but that didn’t mean the lands beyond were at peace. The Cossack lords who ruled this country were fighting over the throne. Right behind the border, Fox and Jacob got caught in an exchange of fire, and for a moment Jacob felt relief that Nerron was riding with Will—even though he still couldn’t figure out why.

  Snow-covered hills in June. Mountain gorges so dark they were still filled with fog at mid-afternoon. The Karpathy mountains guarded Ukraina’s fertile lands like a thick wall, and they were so untamed that even Jacob could barely name half the land’s magical inhabitants. Not that knowing their names would’ve made them any friendlier. Crouching among the trees were Lidercs, ghostlike creatures who appeared suddenly, as though formed of the fog itself. Then there were the pit traps concealed under branches that had been dug by cat-sized gnomes whom the people of these mountains referred to as Manoks. Tiny, Heinzel-like men pelted them with raven droppings. And the bumblebee-sized cousins of the Grass-Elves swarmed them so closely that Fox and Jacob were still picking them from their clothes even hours later.

  In this kind of terrain, the vixen was a much better guide than the Bastard, and by the end of the third day, the tracks they were following were barely two hours old.

  Fox was still very taciturn. Instead of talking about what preoccupied her, however, she quarreled with Jacob about the tiniest things. It didn’t feel good, this sudden strangeness, and it made him so miserable he didn’t pay attention to the path, let alone to the very out-of-place warm wind brushing his face.

  Fox had dismounted. Her horse had a stone in its hoof. She unwittingly turned her back to the figure who was standing all but invisibly between the nearby rocks. Seventeen’s clothes were as gray as the rock surrounding him, and his face reflected the leaves and branches, until it changed into the one he’d last shown to Jacob. Jacob yelled a warning, but it was too late. Seventeen looked steadily at him while he grabbed Fox. His lips silently mouthed one word: war. He pressed his hand against Fox’s face, and when he let go, it had turned to silver.

  Jacob stumbled toward the Mirrorling. He drew his pistol and shot, helpless and desperate. What did he expect? That Spieler had neglected to protect his creatures against bullets? Seventeen’s skin swallowed the bullets like liquid glass.

  Fox was no longer moving. Jacob stopped, his limbs as frozen as hers.

  Seventeen let go of her still body and walked toward Jacob.

  “So we meet again.” He put his hand on Jacob’s chest. “He warned you, didn’t he?”

  Jacob felt the very air in his lungs turn to silver. It froze his blood, and his last thought was of Fox and that he hadn’t protected her. It broke his heart—into a thousand silver splinters.

  Soon

  War. Yes. Spieler wiped the mirror in his medallion. He liked to call it his glass eye. The images were brought by Heinzel, birds, insects…Some swallowed the glass unknowingly or carried it as jewelry or an amulet, and some had to be bribed with a few silver baubles. The system had become a little unreliable during the Elves’ extended exile, but right now it showed him exactly what he wanted to see. The two silver bodies were a beautiful sight. All those attempts to cross him! He’d forgiven Jacob before, because he was Rosamund’s elder son. But that was over. Spieler snapped the medallion shut. Eight hundred years was long enough to make even an immortal a little impatient.

  Her younger son was doing just what they’d hoped for. Krieger had suggested years ago that they make Jacob complicit in their plans so that one day he might go on the mission Will was now performing. Spieler had always objected to that plan. Rosamund’s elder was a born rebel, unwilling to follow any advice, let alone instructions. Jacob had been used without his knowing it. That’s how he’d brought them the crossbow. Will, in contrast, was as easily impressed as he was manipulated. He wanted to believe, to trust, to serve.

  Good. It hadn’t been easy to get him to go through the mirror the first time. Of course he’d wanted to know where his precious big brother disappeared to all the time, but he never would have abandoned his mother. Only after Rosamund’s death had the temptation become too strong, and then they co
uld only hope that the Goyl would infect him with the curse of the Dark Fairy, thus making him immune to her magic. A game of roulette, as they would say in this world. Spieler had to admit he’d never, not in his wildest dreams, imagined Will as the embodiment of a Goyl legend. Of course, Seer claimed he’d seen the jade in the innards of some raven years ago, but after all Seer claimed to have seen in disemboweled animals or some filthy crystal, he’d never foretold the curse of the Fairies. Nyet. Nada.

  Spieler closed his eyes and searched his memory for Rosamund’s face. Will looked so much like her. She’d never understood who and what she was and why she’d felt that longing all her life. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked her elder son to find the answer for her. Too late. Mortality was such a strange fate. At least Spieler had managed to steal her face before it became tired and wilted. He’d already put it on three of his creatures.

  His creatures...Thanks to Fabbro’s help, the Mirrorlings were slowly coming close to what he’d hoped for. Glass had always obeyed Spieler’s command, but Fabbro could make it sing. He was the only one of them who liked to show himself deformed. A hunched back. A missing eye. He could never be ugly enough. Fabbro had convinced the other Elves not to steal only the pretty faces. Hundreds of faces were needed to make the creatures Elven-wise. Another thing they’d learned only slowly. For the golems you needed only three, but golems didn’t need to be smart. Breathing clay was easy, but glass and silver could only be awoken by the Alderelves’ greatest secret: their true face. Not many had volunteered, especially after it became clear that the Mirrorlings were not immune to the curse. The first ones had barely lasted more than a day behind the mirror. By now they managed weeks. Sixteen and Seventeen hid their Elf faces, the ones that gave them life, behind two hundred human faces. After all, their job was not to catch a few Grass-Elves or to pick some of Krieger’s favorite flowers. They were guarding the weapon that would end the Alderelves’ exile—and the one who would deliver their revenge.