Mad, Bad & Dangerous

of the prophecies about our god. It was written in kelfish runes. That’s why they hired me, to translate it.”

A terrible suspicion formed in Kett’s mind. A kelf killed my mother. “Can you remember it?”

Lya nodded. “You’re going to ask me to write it down, aren’t you?” She made a face, sighed and took a notepad from her pocket. With a sideways glance at Striker, she added, “But please destroy it afterward. Words have power to kelfs, especially words like this. If they’re left written, even if no one reads them, they have power. They…they warp and control.”

“Did you destroy the copy my parents had?” Bael asked, his voice hoarse.

“No. They’d already sent me through the Wall by then.”

“His parents sent you through the wall?” Tyrnan asked, amazed. “You said it was a wizard.”

“Wizard, Mage…what’s the difference?”

Bael rolled his eyes.

“You never told me you worked for a Nasc!” Tyrnan said.

“Well, who else would have me? I killed a human.”

“Did you kill my mother?” Bael asked sharply.

“No. I killed a man named Grevlick, who owned a forge in Skavsta, and who beat and starved his kelfs.” She fixed Bael with a steely look. “You can’t break the skin of a kelf, but beatings hurt all the same.”

Bael glanced at Kett, then down at the table.

Lya frowned at the piece of paper she’d been drawing on then looked up. “Here. This describes the ritual. There’s a chant to be said, but I haven’t written it.” She paused, glancing at Striker.

“Oh please,” he said. “I got more power in my eyelashes than I could get from any bollocky kelf ritual.”

Kett held out her hand for the pad and when she got it, stared in shock.

“These symbols,” she began, and looked up at Lya.

“Tyrnan asked me about some of them. But not in the right order, not with the right…context.”

“They were on the walls of the cave. In Nihon. And…” Kett paused, and Var climbed off Bael’s lap and trotted down the table toward her, his claws clicking on the polished wood.

“And?” Bael urged.

“They were in my dream too. Recurring dream.” Crawling over Bael’s naked body. Maybe she didn’t need to add that part.

He said nothing to that, but he did get up and move to lean over Kett’s shoulder. He was very close, reading the pictograms Lya had drawn. Very close, very hot and very wrong.

Var sat in front of Kett, a small mongrel dog, tail wagging and eyes hopeful. Kett ignored him.

Bael straightened up.

“Kett,” he said softly. She kept her eyes fixed on the paper. “Kett, look at me.” Var nudged her hand with his soft, whiskery nose.

“Why?”

“I dreamed those symbols too. I dreamed you were with me, and those symbols appeared on your skin.”

Kett felt herself go very still. There was no possible way he could have known what she’d dreamt. She’d mentioned the symbols to her father but she’d told no one they’d appeared on Bael’s face and body.

Everyone was silent for a while then Striker, sitting opposite Kett, shoved Var to one side and looked at the symbols.

He laughed.

“Oh, I suppose a ritual involving painful death is funny to you, is it?” Kett snapped as Var, whimpering, leapt into Bael’s arms.

“Of course it is, pet. But what’s funny about this is how no one’s read it right.” He looked at Bael, who was holding Var, now in cat form, and stroking him soothingly. “Did your mother ever achieve this ultimate power?”

“If she had, she’d probably still be alive,” Bael said coldly.

“Right. Peck,” he addressed Lya, who scowled. “You said she was using shapeshifters and Nasc, right?”

The kelf nodded. “She got it wrong.”

This time they all stared at Lya.

“This symbol here,” she said, tapping the paper. “The Nasc interpreted it as ‘shape’ or ‘form’. But I told you- context. It has a looser meaning. They asked me to read it in Leaclii, which is the language of my tribe, but it was meant to be spoken in the ancient language. The meaning is subtly different.”

“How different?” Bael asked. Kett’s heart was thudding in her chest.

Lya chewed her lip. “In Leaclii, tvaskriva maskin krydda mittefiende formabyta.”

“Two creatures,” Tyrnan translated slowly, “two opposite creatures…who can…change?”

Lya nodded unhappily and went on. “And in the ancient language, na varda duan chimeron salasth sa fierna.”

Tyrnan gave her a blank look. The kelfs had never taught anyone their ancient language.

“Two creatures who are enemies,” Striker said, and Kett wasn’t really surprised he’d understood. “Enemies who can change their appearance.”

There was another silence.

“I don’t see the difference,” said Tyrnan.

“I do,” Bael said. He looked right at Lya, who looked right back at him.

“Kelfs and Nasc,” Chance said.

“But a kelf can only change its color when it’s a child,” Tyrnan said. “As an adult, it’s fixed.”

“Unless you’re a kelf who’s been ensorcelled by a Nasc Mage,” Lya said, her eyes still on Bael. “Your father experimented on me. Precisely what he thought he was doing when he sent me through the Wall is anyone’s guess, but I was still really only a kelfing at the time. I could still change my color.”

“The way a young Nasc can still change his shape,” Dark said.

“Whatever he did to me, it left me a mutable creature. I’m old enough to have grown kelfings of my own now, but…” Lya changed her skin color from blue to red, her hair from green to yellow, and her eyes through a spectrum of colors that made Kett feel slightly nauseous. “I can still change my color.”

“Do you think he knew?” Bael asked. “About the ritual, about needing you?”

Lya frowned and eventually shook her head. “He wasn’t terribly interested in the ritual. He said he would participate in it, because she couldn’t, not if she was the one performing it. But while she hunted down a shapeshifter, he experimented on how to send a kelf through the Wall.”

“No one else has managed it,” said Tyrnan. “Even Striker can’t do it.”

Striker snorted and lit up a cigarette in a manner that suggested such a thing wasn’t even worth bothering about.

“But no one else who’s tried it was a Nasc Mage,” Bael said. “That’s the thing. A kelf and a Nasc have never teamed up like that before.” He turned to Kett. “Do you know what this means?”

“You’re going to stop beating up kelfs?”

“No. Well, yes, but I mean-they don’t need you anymore.”

“Aye, but they don’t know that,” her father put in.

Kett rubbed her aching shoulder. “A great comfort. Thank you.”

She paused for a moment and looked around the table. She was tired. She was depressed. She was in pain. And she wasn’t needed.

She shoved back her chair, knocking it into Bael, and stood up.

“Right then,” she said. “I’ll be off.”

She hadn’t gotten three paces outside the room before Bael caught up to her.

“Kett, wait.”

“Fuck off.”

“No, listen.”

“Fuck off.”

“Kett-”

“Fuck.”