Bindings (11 page)

“I have asked you once,” Titania said, her voice stern. “Tell me what you know.”

Why couldn't she just help? Why must she have the explanation? Perhaps, though, the explanation would give her the information she needed to help. “As you will,” Tamlin acceded. “The withering of the land was the work of the manticore. The bindings you could not break were his. The child—”

“The
child
?” Titania repeated angrily. “He is called Timothy.”

Tamlin was surprised at her vehemence, but if
she believed she had just cause, due to a misunderstood connection between herself and the boy, it would only work in his favor. His and the boy's.

“
Timothy
destroyed the manticore. How is anybody's guess. I found him wounded beyond my power to heal. So I flew him here to you.”

Titania gazed sadly at the boy. “For the serpent's bite and the scorpion's sting, there are tinctures of great virtue. Against the breath of demons and the spittle of the mandrake, there are spells. But for the venom of the manticore, there is no cure. None, Tam. I am so sorry.”

She stood and took Tamlin's hand. He did not shake her off. He knew she wanted to comfort him, and he wondered if comfort was possible. Beyond her, he could see that flowers were still blossoming, and creatures he had not seen in years fluttered or gamboled or frolicked in the lush grasses.

“I share your grief, Tamlin,” Titania said. “But he was born to die, as they all are. The mortal blood in him—your blood—makes it so.” She shook her head sadly. “It seems as though your kind barely live. They skim the surface of time and vanish without a ripple, like mayflies.”

She released Tamlin's hand and stood over Tim again. “If only he had been raised in Faerie. The land and I would have worked our ways to blur those boundaries between your kind and mine.”

This was not what Tamlin needed to hear—how things might have been different.
Things are as they are.

Titania turned to face Tamlin. “Where did you say he slew the manticore?” she asked.

“Why?”

“You surprise me, Tamlin,” Titania scolded. “Faerie lives because of Timothy's courage. We must honor his sacrifice. A monument will be built in the place of his victory. At the site of his triumph.”

As Tamlin gazed down at his son's tortured, blue body, at the child who would not see manhood, he saw only waste. This may have been a victory for magic, for Faerie, and Tim may have triumphed over a monster, but how could Tamlin rejoice? Honor was a bitter achievement when one did not live to see it.

But he said none of this. He merely nodded, and lifted the boy into his arms. The boy who had done so much, when he, his father, had done so little.

D
EATH WAS STILL WAITING.
Tim hadn't spoken a word in some time. He decided there was no point in telling her his story. Why should he?

“Like you give a toss,” he muttered. “Well, I'm sorry. I don't feel like relieving anyone's eternal boredom at the moment,” he told her. He crossed his arms and stared straight ahead.

“Excuse me?” Death seemed startled. She stood up. “You don't want to talk to me? Fine. But I've got news for you, buster. I don't particularly enjoy being insulted.” She picked up her mug and went over to the sink. She turned on the water and began washing dishes.

Tim instantly regretted his words. He hovered behind her at the sink. “Miss?” He still couldn't bring himself to call her “Death.” “I didn't mean to upset you.”

“Is that a fact?” She scrubbed a pot vigor
ously with a scouring pad.

“Well, yes…Yes, it is a fact.”

Death turned off the faucet and dried her hands on a stained dishcloth. Ignoring Tim, she went over to a set of slatted double doors. Tim figured that it had originally been a pantry, but that she had converted it into a big walk-in closet. Tim was curious about what she might have stashed in there. He'd heard of a person having “skeletons in the closet.” That would be singularly appropriate here. He fought back a giddy laugh.

“Stand back,” Death instructed. She unlatched the double doors.

Tim did as he was told. He had no idea what might leap out at him from Death's closet.

Death ducked as an old toaster and a boot fell from a top shelf and nearly beaned her.

“Wow,” Tim exclaimed. “That's the most packed, jammed closet I've ever seen.”

“You should see the one in my bedroom,” Death told him. “Now about your quest—you don't mind if I call it a quest, do you? I know you're touchy about certain words relating to magic.”

“I don't mind,” Tim assured her. “Are you still angry at me?” He continued to stare at the closet. He couldn't quite get over the amount of stuff in it. “Uh, are those all hats?”

“In the hatboxes? Nope. What's in them is
mostly junk.” Death dropped down to a crouch and started shoving aside suitcases, file folders, and the hatboxes. She was obviously looking for something.

“I can't say that I'm angry at you, Mr. Sarcasm, but I haven't forgiven you either.” She grunted as she pushed a box to the back of the closet. She glanced at Tim over her shoulder. “You might try apologizing. Works wonders.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He sat on the floor behind her. “I'm sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” She gave him one of her killer grins.
That's good
, Tim thought.
Death having a “killer grin.” There were loads of opportunities for superbad puns in this situation
. Just the kind of jokes Molly punched him on the arm for but Tim knew she secretly enjoyed.

Death turned all the way around to face him directly. “Now as far as the quest thing goes—what are you really trying to find out?”

“I told you. I want to know who my father is. My real father.”

“Uh-huh. You did say that. But you never said why.”

“Why do you people have to make everything so complicated?” Tim complained.

“Hey, you were the one who said this was complicated, remember?” She turned back around
and rummaged through the closet again. She seemed to have found what she'd been searching for; she tugged hard on a large trunk. “I'm just trying to figure out why someone as sensible as you would wander into a manticore's lair. I mean you didn't just wake up one morning suddenly dying to know whose gametes had the pleasure of becoming your blastocyst?”

“Huh?”
Now what language was she speaking?

“Come on, you,” she muttered to the trunk. She looked back at Tim. “You've had sex ed, right? You know. Sperm. Zygotes. Chromosomes, etcetera.”

“Sure.”
Man. More biology. Who knew school would ever turn out to be so important?

She dragged the trunk all the way out of the closet. “Do you really care where your chromosomes came from?”

Tim's forehead wrinkled as he thought over her question. “I guess not.”

“Well, what's the point of all this then?”

“I—I—I guess you know my mum is dead.”
Oh, that's bloody brilliant
, Tim scolded himself.
Of course she knows that. She's Death.
He checked to see if she had caught that stupid remark. She was still just looking at him, her expression concerned.

“So it's just been me and Dad for a long
time,” Tim explained. “He's okay, but he's…well, he sort of falls into himself sometimes, and he forgets I'm there. Then this homeless bloke told me that my real father was this really moody guy who can turn into a hawk. And this hawk guy, Tamlin, he's a falconer, whatever that is. The first time I met him, he hit me. The second time, he saved my life. So there's him, and there's my old dad, and I don't know which of them I belong to.”

“Belong to?” Death repeated. “Ooooh, you people. Where do you get these ideas? You are so strange.”

Death was poised on her hands and feet beside the open trunk. Her flashing black eyes bored right into Tim's. “Tim. Heredity is one thing. Identity is something else entirely. How on earth anyone could manage to confuse the two completely baffles me. But when you start talking about belonging to someone because they happened to be in the right place at the right time.” She shook her head and sat back on her heels. “Oh, give me a break. If you belong to anyone, you belong to yourselves. And most of you never even manage that.”

Tim's mouth dropped open. He had thought she was on his side. Now she seemed to be mocking him, putting him and everyone else down. His
mouth clamped shut again.

You'd think being dead counted for some kindness
, he thought.

 

Tamlin sat in the manticore's ruined estate. It was as if when Tim killed the beast anything that the manticore had touched exploded or shattered. The shelves of books were toppled, shards of glass from the display cases lay strewn about. Only the bones and preserved bodies of the manticore's collection remained. Some things are impossible to restore.

Once Titania had transported Tim and Tamlin to the mansion, Tamlin had cleared one of the large display pedestals. He found an elegant tapestry and covered the platform with it, then laid Tim's rigid body down on top of it. He placed candles at the four corners, creating a makeshift altar, then sank into a carved mahogany chair close by. He left the drapes drawn at the windows—he craved the darkness. He could not remember now how long ago his vigil had begun. Hours? Days?

Titania flung open the doors and stormed inside. “How much longer are you going to brood here, like an owl in the dark?” she asked. “Be done with tormenting yourself! Surely you do not blame yourself for the child's death.”

“I see you now refer to Tim as ‘the child,'” Tamlin noted. “And you speak as if he were already dead.”

“Dead or alive, what is it to him that you sit here in the dark?” she admonished him. “Look into his eyes and you'll find only emptiness there. His spirit has flown.”

She knelt beside Tamlin's thronelike chair and her voice became gentle. “Come away, Tamlin. We've lost Timothy, but we've found each other. It hurts me to see you caged here for days by your sorrow—lost as a hawk in a snare, so alone—when I am here for you.” She placed her hand on his leg.

Tamlin shook off her hand as he stood. He had sat motionless for so long he felt stiff. “Not so long ago you said that I was not a man. A
hawk
, you called me.”

“Tamlin, I—” Titania rose but made no move toward him. Tamlin could tell she was uncertain how to proceed. Well, so was he.

“You spoke in anger, but you spoke truth,” he said. “I was young when you brought me here, lady. I learned hawk's shape and hawk's ways before I knew what it was to be a man. For six hundred years I've ridden the wind and hunted and called that life. Flown to your wrist when you wanted me there, and called that love.” He felt
anger welling up inside him. He turned to glare at her. “But it was a game, lady. Being your hawk. And I find I've tired of it.”

Ignoring her stricken expression, he crossed to Tim. He placed his hands on the boy's cold forehead. Tim's body was quite blue now, and the skin was stretched taut against his bones, giving it a painfully skeletal appearance.

“It is not guilt that binds me to my son,” Tamlin said. “The child that might have been ours. Nor is it grief. It is something you will never understand.”

“Which is what?” Titania demanded behind him.

“Titania. May we have new candles, please? Two will do.”

Tamlin stroked Tim's forehead, wishing to ease the boy's torment. There was a long pause.

“Candles,” Titania said, her voice tight. “Very well.”

Titania charged out of the mansion, fury and frustration coursing through her body.
He thinks I am his errand girl now?
She stopped when she reached the archway in the crumbled wall. “Amadan, attend me,” she ordered.

The flitling appeared, hovering a few inches from her face. “No sooner said than done, my queen.” He gave a little bow. “Now let your Fool
hear what's amiss. I've not seen you this angry since yesterday.” He grinned at her.

“Mind your tongue, jester, or expect to lose it,” Titania snapped. “What troubles me is none of your affair.”

She took in a calming breath, and conjured herself at her most imperious. “Fetch two candles and give them to the other fool—the one you'll find communing with the corpse in there.” She waved at the mansion. “And should the encounter suggest to you any amusing little songs or stories, you will kindly refrain from repeating them to me, unless you prefer to be voiceless the rest of your days.” With a snap of her fingers, Titania, Queen of Faerie, vanished.

Poor little queen
, Tamlin thought, as he stroked Tim's twisted cheek.
It must be disconcerting to find yourself jealous of a dying child. How comforting it must be, at times like these, to know that your world exists to console you.

“Ahem.”

Tamlin glanced over his shoulder. “Amadan,” he greeted.

“I should have guessed these were for you, Falconer.” The flitling held up two candles as big as his small body. “No one else has your knack for infuriating queens,” Amadan commented. “What a special talent.”

“Amadan. The candles.”

Amadan flew to Tamlin and placed the candles alongside Tim. “So how have you put milady out of sorts this time? Did you slay the boy?”

Tamlin picked up one of the candle holders and removed the stubby remains of the burned-down candle. He replaced it with one of the new candles Amadan had delivered. “Amadan, I've been too busy to track you down. But if you will stay where you are just a moment longer, I'm sure that I can find the time to kill you.”

Amadan fluttered away without another word.

Tamlin prepared the other candle. “It was Merlin who taught me the hawk's shape,” he told Tim, even though he knew the child could not hear him. “He taught me much else besides. He wept in his wine as he told me how he stood beside Arthur's bed in Avalon, listening to the king moan, gripped in his death sleep.”

Tamlin pulled several herbs from his sack and scattered them over Tim's body. “‘I could heal him, he said in his withered old voice,'” Tamlin remembered. “‘Why don't you then?' I had asked him, not believing him. ‘You mock me,' Merlin replied, his eyes smoldering. He raised his hands and they turned to fire for a moment. I thought he meant to cast me into the fires of hell. Then he
sank back into his chair and in a voice bitter with self-loathing said, ‘No, you do not understand. How could you?' It was then that he told me of the spell.”

Tamlin studied his handiwork. The herbs were in place, the candles were lit, the words recalled.

“Yes,” Tamlin said. “The spell.”