by James Enge
Earno tried not to follow these with his eyes, but his host noted the effort and said, “Yes, it’s poor stuff. But we’re not starving, nor need you while you’re with us.”
“I’m surprised,” admitted Earno, “since it’s past harvest, and Ranga í Rayal is said to have rich farmland.”
The Arbiter flushed, pleased, yet somehow embarrassed at the compliment. “It has,” she said. “And harvest is long past. So’s slaughtering, in fact, or should be. But we have had no drudgings—you would say ‘shipments,’ I guess—from Ranga for nearly a month.”
“That seems strange.”
“It is strange. But we have stores to rely on. Any throw, we expect relief . . . soon. Perhaps the slaughtering held them up there. It can be tricky, sometimes.”
Earno nodded and smiled politely. He had run away from his parents’ farm in Westhold when still young; it had been slaughtering season. After some more talk about Ranga and its colony, he said, “I’ve come to consult with my peer, Summoner Lernaion. I take it you’ve seen him.”
“Keep you! Many times! He’s been in the ‘Hold for months, setting the Wards. He left here the last time less than half a month ago.”
“Bound for where?”
“Thrymhaiam. Where else can you go? All roads up here lead to the wormhuggers, since they made them. Fortunately all roads lead away from them, too, if you understand me.”
Earno thought he did. “Wormhuggers” must be some local slur for dwarves. Earno felt as if he should object, but really could not bring himself to. “Did the summoner seem disturbed?” he asked.
“Well, the summoner never showed his feelings, not to me. But there were plenty among his escort who were worried sick. And I’ve seen the Wards set before; never have I seen it take so long.”
“Did he mention what was wrong?”
“We hardly spoke, not as you and I are doing now. But, again, I heard from his escort that he was worried about the banefires. They are burning brighter and higher this year than ever before.”
Earno nodded. Things were not as bad as he had feared, but he was glad he had come. “We will not trouble you long. Tomorrow we will follow Lernaion to Thrymhaiam, and thence probably to Thains’ Northtower. But if we could find lodgings for the night . . .”
The Arbiter looked welcoming and apprehensive at once. “Your escort is . . . ?”
“One thain only,” Earno reassured her, realizing that she must be thinking of her limited store of food. “And—”
At that there came a knocking on the door, and sounds of shouting rang in the entryway. Arbiter and summoner rose together and went to investigate.
They found a pair of the Arbiter’s servants carrying an unconscious man while another servant struggled to close the door against a crowd of angry townspeople. At the entrance of the Arbiter silence fell immediately. Earno recognized the unconscious man as his thain.
The Arbiter turned to one of her servants. “Tell me,” she said curtly.
“The man was selling food, Arbiter. It’s that one—the wormhugger from Thrymhaiam. He had two packs of food, and he was selling it, and the crowd formed, and things got out of hand. We came and took him into sanctuary, or were trying to.”
“He said he’d sell me flatbread for some dried meat,” shouted a man at the doorway. “He wouldn’t take money. I haven’t had meat for fifty days! It’s them that stopped the drudgings! So they could do this to us!” Others began shouting behind him.
Earno stood forward and spoke one of the Silent Words. Everyone clapped their hands over their ears except Earno himself, who was braced at the shock-center, and the unconscious man, who was unceremoniously dumped on the floor. As their ears were still ringing Earno spoke into the silence, saying, “This man is a thain and a Guardian of these lands. He came north from the Easthold with me and knew nothing of your troubles. That he was selling the food we would need on our journey I will not believe; your own accounts give you the lie. You have also accused yourselves of assaulting the inviolable person of a Guardian. The penalty for that is exile.”
“How could we know?” demanded one of the townsmen.
Sternly, Earno pointed at the thain’s gray cape of office. With irritation he noted that it was soiled, torn, and even burned—hardly recognizable, even in the lamplit hallway. His gesture was ruined.
“Go now,” the Arbiter said to her people. “And keep the peace!”
Without further dispute, they went.
The thain was carried to the dining hall and laid on the bare table. Wine was sent for. The summoner and the Arbiter looked at his wounds, but these were hardly more than scrapes and bruises. It was surprising he was still unconscious.
“It is a bad time,” the Arbiter was saying. “They are just barely hungry. But they are, well—farm people, used to feasting when fall comes. And a month with nothing from Ranga, no message, even . . . They’re frightened.”
Earno said nothing. He cleaned and bound the more serious of the cuts, then stepped aside to wait for the thain to regain consciousness.
“The . . . He’s well-known around here, of course,” the Arbiter continued. “He . . . well, you can understand the wor—the dwarves being the way they are. But it’s a little grotesque to see . . . well, another kind of person act that way. A little unnerving . . .”
Earno motioned her to silence. Morlock had begun to stir, and then suddenly his eyes opened. But he was not awake. Earno, even standing some distance away, was amazed at the intense clarity of his gray eyes, the pupils contracted almost to invisibility. Himself a master of Seeing, he recognized the rapture of vision.
In a voice taut with urgency Morlock cried out, “Regin and Fafnir were brothers!” He laughed aloud, an ugly sound. Then he fell silent.
“Those names—” the Arbiter began, but again Earno waved her silent.
Quietly, so as not to interrupt the vision, Earno prompted Morlock, “Tell your tale. What news of Regin and Fafnir?”
But the spell was broken. Morlock regained consciousness. Watching the wakeful expression settle down on his face, Earno thought of a series of gauze curtains descending before a light. When the last one descended, the light disappeared. His face sullen and suspicious, Morlock sat up.
“What was your vision?” asked the summoner.
“I don’t remember,” said the thain.
Then Morlock and the Arbiter eyed each other coldly. Earno, watching them, decided that prejudice was a knife with two edges.
Thinking this, he suddenly remembered the knife hidden under his cloak. He thought of Morlock confronting the angry mob on the dark street, and for the first time realized why Morlock had surrendered the blade. That, too, was like a spell breaking.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Settlement
The two Guardians slept that night in rooms of the Arbiter’s house. Earno’s room faced the Hill of Storms, and he did not sleep well. Though the shutter was closed, he could still see the eerie blue light of banefire around the edge of the window. When he finally fell asleep he dreamed of that stormy Station of the Graith when he had convicted Merlin of impairing the Guard, and in doing so had defied almost every Guardian in the Graith, including his patron Lernaion. But in the dream, as he made his accusation, Earno saw that Merlin wore the cape of a thain, ragged and singed. He was also holding the accursed sword-scepter Gryregaest in his hands. Suddenly, nothing Earno said seemed to mean anything, but he could not stop talking, making the same speech he had made a generation ago. (He had not forgotten a word of that speech, nor would he ever.) Finally, Ambrosius cast the sword onto the Witness Stone standing between them; the blade shattered like black glass, and Earno’s dream with it.
It was just before dawn when he awoke. There was still a blue light seeping through the shuttered window, but it was the natural gray-blue of gloaming. He went to the window, unbarred it, and opened the shutter. Then he sat on the sill and drank in the electric air of those mountains.
The Hill of Storms frowned
upon the settlement. Earno could pick out few details of the surface. But in silhouette against the brightening sky he could see a sharply angled object on the crown. He supposed it was the Broken Altar, if there was such a thing. (There was no better authority for it than First Merlin’s Song, the tale of Merlin’s struggle against the Dead Cor.) Earno thought of Merlin as he looked at the hill, and of his strange dream the night before. He noted, from his second-floor window, that there was a high wooden fence encircling the hill at its base, apparently designed to keep people out rather than anything in. He wondered what it was for, and his speculations did nothing to settle his mind.
As he sat on the sill, he realized he could hear voices coming from below him. Walking back and forth, Morlock and the Arbiter were speaking intently to each other behind the house.
“In return,” the Arbiter was saying, “I want you to persuade your father not to take revenge against the town, or Ranga.”
The summoner could imagine Morlock shaking his head (although the eaves of the house hid the speakers from him). “I cannot speak for my father,” the thain’s voice said. “I have no authority there.”
“A dwarvish answer. What more do you want?”
“Nothing.” Morlock stopped walking. “Keep your horses! But I tell you this: I am a Guardian of the Wardlands, all these lands. Even Ranga.”
“A dwarvish answer! It costs you nothing; it sounds well. And Ranga will still pay the penalty.”
“It is a dwarvish answer. I was taught to say what I mean. That is why you will not trust me. You never mean what you say, so you must always say more than you mean. Dwarves are not like that.” He paused, and continued more slowly. “They are unlike you in other ways also. They took me in, they gave me shelter, and no one else under the Guard would dare to do it. For that alone, I would give dwarvish answers as long as I live.” Earno heard his footsteps as he strode away.
Turning back to his room, Earno thought about the conversation he had overheard. In a way he was pleased that Morlock could feel and express as humane an emotion as loyalty, and it explained much in his manner. But in another way Earno was deeply disturbed. If Morlock and Merlin were in contact ("persuade your father,” the Arbiter had said) then Morlock had broken the First Decree—the decree forbade contact between those in exile and those under the Guard. But if Merlin was able to frequent the north so much that the Arbiter feared reprisals for having harmed his son . . . that was bad. If Morlock had, as a thain, aided him, it was treason. Ambrosius the son could easily follow his father into exile, both denounced by Earno.
While part of him whispered that the prospect was right and inevitable, the rest of Earno felt weary. How could he condemn a man for speaking occasionally with his own father? Yet such a thing put the whole realm in danger, if the father was Merlin Ambrosius. Who knew his purposes? Now Earno wondered if the trouble with the Wards was Merlin’s doing. If so, Morlock’s exile was already a certain thing.
When Earno descended to the main hall of the Arbiter’s house, he found the Arbiter herself awaiting him. They greeted each other, and then she spoke.
“I sent my servants to recover your packs, but I’m afraid they were carried off by the crowd. They can probably be recovered, given a few days.”
“That’s unfortunate. My business is urgent.”
“So your thain informed me. I have taken the liberty of preparing two of my finest horses for you and your thain. Please do me the honor of accepting them, for you and your companion.” The emphasis in her last phrase was oddly insistent.
“I do so; thank you.” Earno wondered about the flourishes; in the Westhold no high-minded host would think twice about giving an honored guest a horse. But perhaps they were more valuable here. “That is . . . Thank you very much. When our packs are recovered, please send them on to Thrymhaiam.”
“It will be done,” said the Arbiter, with an air of concluding some sort of deal.
They walked together to the front door of the house. Morlock was standing in the street outside; not far away two horses were tethered, already saddled. Morlock looked at the Arbiter warily. With almost equal wariness, Earno noted an Arbiter’s servant on either side of the door. Set to keep Morlock from entering?
“Ride well, Morlock syr Theorn,” said the Arbiter pleasantly. “And good fortune to you, Summoner Earno.”
Morlock looked once at Earno and then away. He walked over to the horses, untethered one, and mounted it. When Earno had done the same Morlock rode off down the street, looking neither right nor left until the settlement was far behind them.
Later that day, after hours of silence, Earno asked, “What’s wrong?”
Morlock shook his head, but answered, saying, “The Arbiter will look on these horses as a binding settlement—for my beating. Horses are valuable in the north.”
“And so?” Earno said sharply, thinking of the conversation he had overheard. “Were you thinking of revenge?”
“No. That is the point.”
“It’s one I don’t understand.”
“Dwarves do not accept wergild. It is not our way. Injuries . . . you revenge them or forgive them. You do not accept payment for them.”
Earno had heard differently of dwarves, but kept silent. It was, however, as if Morlock had read his mind.
“When you go through life with people saying of you . . . that you would buy and sell everything . . . you become careful of what you will buy or sell.”
“We need the horses,” Earno said.
Morlock nodded.
Earno thought of saying that they could send the horses back from Thrymhaiam. But he was not sure they would not need them still. He said impatiently, “What would you have of me?”
Morlock replied, “Do not speak of this at Thrymhaiam. They will have to know, but let them know from me.”
“Very well,” said Earno, who was prepared to concern himself with other matters.
Among these were the location of Lernaion and the present condition of the Wards. Since he had word of Lernaion’s well-being as recently as a half-month ago, long after his concern had begun, he gave his thoughts mostly to the Wards. They had always been difficult to set around the North; that was why Lernaion had come north with a company of thains and vocates to assist him. Since Merlin’s exile, Lernaion was the member of the Graith most skilled in protective magic such as the Wards. If Lernaion was in difficulties, it was something to be concerned about. And Earno’s concern now had a name: Merlin.
Who else but Merlin could defeat, or even hamper, Lernaion in an exercise of this sort of power? And now Earno had reason to believe that Merlin was again a presence to be feared in the north.
The summoner shook his head. It was not unheard-of that one determined person, moving alone, might make it through the Wards and return to the Wardlands. This was rarely a matter of great concern. One person could hardly be a danger to the Guard, living in secret. If they revealed themselves, then the Graith dealt with them. Most exiles who made their way back did not reveal themselves: instead they took up private lives in the lands. Some in the Graith (Illion, for instance) argued that, by doing so, they had renounced the unrestricted ambition that had earned them (or their ancestors) exile, and so deserved pardon. The Summoner of the City, Lernaion, held a stricter view: that exile was a permanent and irrevocable sentence, not to be suspended or ameliorated in any case. Otherwise, said Lernaion, the First Decree would cease to carry any weight, since the exile that it mandated was the only punishment the Graith could inflict (except in the case of armed invasion, which it was the Graith’s purpose to prevent).
Earno was inclined to take the stricter view himself; otherwise the fertile disorder of the unruled realm would slump into chaos. But there could be no disagreement about a consciously malefic intruder such as Merlin. His action in disrupting the Wards (if, Earno reminded himself faintly, he had actually done so) proved his malice, and his danger. And, Earno added thoughtfully, it underlined the potential threat of all the in
dividual exiles that had returned to the Wardlands.
Suddenly, impulsively, Earno began to hope that Merlin had returned, and had done some terrible crime. Then Earno could face him again. And if he defeated the exile and brought him before the Graith . . . It would be a great deed. It would silence many of his critics among the vocates. And it would help settle a more vigorous policy toward returned exiles; this would win him new influence with his peers, Bleys and Lernaion.
Perhaps roving bands of thains could be set up, to investigate rumors of returnees. They had similar things in the unguarded lands, Earno knew. It would be childish naiveté to forego them here under the Guard, where they were most needed.
Then perhaps something could be done about intensifying the Wards themselves, to choke off the slow permeation of returning exiles. Then the seacoasts would be the only way for outsiders to enter the Wardlands.
Slowly, and in great detail, he began to review methods of tightening the Guard along the coasts.
As they rode on in silence, the shame of having his injuries bought and sold by others faded from Morlock’s mind. The unstained familiar wonder of his homeland stole over him. Wherever he looked he saw the narrow horizon pierced by mountain peaks like pale thorns. The sky above was chill and blue, with storm clouds approaching from the west. The slopes they rode among were rolling and green with life, in sharp glorious disharmony with the steep dead gravehills on their left.
He saw that the blue-gold autumn flowers were already dying, and that a blackiron maijarra tree was already in its darkest bloom. Both of these things meant a long winter and an early one. And it had been unseasonably cold every night since they had entered the Whitethorns; the passes would soon be closed.