Bone and Jewel Creatures by Elizabeth Bear

did not interrupt her; he dared not, when she was bringing him this gift of memory. But he let his lips move on the word, the name he had never before heard.
    Wove .
    His mother’s name, and a gift of power.
    “She named me Michael?” he asked, because it was important to him, suddenly, to know.
    Bijou shook her head. “That was your father’s choice.”
    She paused, as if to give him a moment to collect himself, and now she turned her head to look at him directly. When his focus returned to her, she again looked down and spoke.
    “We were adventurers, Brazen. Salamander and Kaulas and the Old Bey, who was but Prince Salih in those days. We fought in the name of the old Old Bey, for it was not expected that Prince Salih would inherit his father’s title. He was a younger son, you see.”
    Her pause might have been to gather her thoughts, but Brazen felt the need to fill it. “I did not know that. I mean, I knew there had been a quarrel when the Old Bey came to power, because the old Old Bey’s advisors in their wisdom chose to pass over Prince Salih’s brother and give the title to Prince Salih. But I did not know—”
    “It was our quarrel,” Bijou said.
    This time, Brazen left the silence empty.
    She filled it, after a time. “Salamander and Kaulas and I stood with the Old Bey against his brother. Kaulas had spurned me to pursue Salamander, but she and I were sisters-of-decision and we had agreed that he would not come between us. When the Old Bey’s brother came against us, she was swollen with Kaulas’ child—with you, Brazen.”
    “Were you not angry?” he asked.
    She managed to hold his gaze when she looked up again. “Wove and I had decided to raise the child together.”
    Brazen’s heart shivered in his chest like a watch gear. “That’s not what happened.”
    “She died,” Bijou said. “She died, and Kaulas—he arranged things. So that you could be carried to term. Or near enough.”
    “Vajhir,” Brazen breathed. “Kaulas the Necromancer. No, he never told me. How…”
    “How did he do it?”
    “How long?”
    “Eight weeks,” Bijou said. “I stayed with her.”
    Brazen wanted to ask, as if in asking he could force her to deny the implications of what she said. As if he could rewrite history and make it somehow less terrible. “She knew what had happened?”
    Bijou smiled. “She knew she was dead. But she gave you life, my dear, and named you. She named you Harun . It was your first name, and your true name, and your father never knew it. And when you had eight years, you came to live with me.”
    She reached out and patted his hand with her dry, horny one. “I know why he’s chosen now. It’s because he and I are dying. And he’s not the sort to let nature take its course.”
    “You think he’s using what he takes from his
abominations to feed his own strength.”
    “It’s the obvious thaumaturgy, isn’t it?” She gestured to the covered dishes of putrescence still set on her workbench. “It is traditional for wizards to struggle mightily once their time approaches. And I admit, I don’t like dying very much myself. But I look forward to Death herself, once the dying is over.”
    “So how do we answer?”
    Bijou smiled. “We bring the fight into the street. Unless you have a better plan?”
    She looked at Brazen. Brazen shrugged helplessly.
    “Then we do it my way,” she said.
    He squeezed her hand. “When this is over, I want you and the child to come and stay with me.”
    “But darling,” Bijou answered. “Where would I keep the elephant?”

    While the other bone and jewel creatures, even down to the scuttling crab-carapaces, dispersed upon the errand Bijou set them, Hawti helped Brazen tote another
procession of chests and crates from his carriage.
    And Bijou arrayed herself for war. She bound her hair back with jeweled scarabs which sunk their legs deep in the snaky locks, and she garbed herself in trousers and coat like a man. When she had been young