by James Enge
He stood and led the way back down the row of Guardians. Deor followed more slowly, wondering if he should stand by the Eldest—until he saw the figure at the end of the row.
“Morlock!”
“Yes,” Illion said. “You see he has been drawn up here after the others?” He indicated a trail of ashes and venom smeared on the floor of the corridor. “My idea is that Tyr drew him up; exhaustion in the wake of a dragonspell can bring about that empty state the Eldest is in. However, he himself will be able to tell us soon enough.”
Deor hardly heard Illion, taking in the awful sight of his harven kin. Morlock’s clothes, except for the gray cloak, were burned rags. His skin was covered with bruises and wounds. His eyes were open and glaring at nothing, his teeth bared in the fearful grin of rigor. His spine was arched; his arms and legs, even his feet were bending inward as the muscles tightened against the bone; his twisted shoulders were bent like a bow. Beside him on the corridor floor lay the shield of Ambrose, battered and blackened by fire and venom. The falcon and thorns glittered bright blue in the light of Deor’s coldlamp.
“Poison has worked deep into his flesh,” Illion remarked.
“Then there is no hope?”
“No bones have been broken,” Illion observed, “and the skin is more or less whole. By Noreê’s teaching, these mean his life may yet be saved.”
“Then the poison hasn’t reached his heart?” Deor asked.
Illion might have explained that Morlock’s mortal danger would be from wounds caused by flesh contracting on a framework of broken bones. He might have explained that the venom was no real danger to Morlock’s heart, which could expand and contract without taking harm. He might have explained that the heart is just a muscle.
But none of that, he guessed, was what Deor really wanted to know. “His heart is sound,” said Illion the Wise, and wondered if it was true.
EPILOGUE
CYMBALS
Just now it seemed to me I stood
between the worlds of life
and death and everywhere about me
the fires were burning.
—The Waking of Angantyr
On the last day of the year, Nimue walked into the little house in the Lost Woods after a long absence. Here Merlin and their daughters lived, in what the wizard called his last redoubt, though it was really just a cottage with a remarkable number of basements. Although Nimue loved her daughters she was rarely in the house these days; her marriage with Merlin was wearing thin.
“Mama is home!” shrieked Hope Nimuelle, and went to hide under a couch. Her mother frightened her a little: Nimue read that clearly. Her father frightened her a little also. Her sister frightened her most of all. Hope thought of herself as a timid child, but Nimue knew the truth was that the girl spent most of her life surrounded by frightening people.
Merlin emerged from his study, accompanied by a cloud of sorcerous purple smoke.
“Good evening, my dear,” the uxorious wizard greeted his witch-wife. “Where the devil are you coming from, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it,” Nimue replied.
“Oh, I’ve read that one,” Merlin said, after a moment’s thought. “Rather flattering, the role you assign me by implication. I take it you were mindsharing with strangers again.”
“With unicorns, mostly. It’s an exhilarating experience. You should try it.”
“I have. I gained no useful knowledge.”
“Knowledge!” Nimue said scornfully. “Experience is the only knowledge that matters.”
“You didn’t used to talk that way,” Merlin remarked ruefully.
“I know, I know. Whatever happened to the girl you married, eh?”
“She went swimming in the Sea of Worlds, so I’m told. Are you hungry, my dear? I believe the kitchen is working on something.”
“As long as it’s not those squeaky mushrooms you’re so fond of. They give me the creeps.”
“You can always pluck them out of the salad if you don’t like them. It’s good to have you back, my dear.”
She knew that he really felt that way, even though he was thinking about killing her if she tried to harm one of the girls, as she had last time. (She loved the girls with a true, mad love. But the thoughts in her mind weren’t always her own.) Yes, it was good to be home, as near to a home as she would ever have again. She would have told him so, but she saw in his mind that he already knew it.
Morlock awoke to see the last sunlight of the year on the sill of the open window of his room. From where he lay in bed he could see nothing but cloudless blue outside. From the moment he woke he knew he was in Thrymhaiam.
It was pleasant to breathe clean cold air, but he felt feverish and had no desire to move. So he didn’t. He lay in bed and watched the light fade from the window.
He became aware that someone else was in the room, sitting against the wall opposite the window. When the sun had fully set she stood and, striking fire, lit an old-fashioned lamp that hung from the ceiling. Her shoulder-length hair was a dark gold; her skin was darker yet. She wore the gray cape of a thain. He had seen her before. He had seen her many times before. Each time it had seemed to him that she was the most beautiful woman alive, but he had never found occasion to tell her so. He sat up in bed.
She turned and met his eye. Her eyes were large and their irises golden, brighter than her hair. He saw on her neck the flaw-line of gills, the mark of a true southerner. It seemed to him, again, that she was the most beautiful woman alive.
“Morlock,” she said, “I am Aloê Oaij. We’ve never met, exactly, but we’ve seen each other from time to time. Do you remember?”
“More or less,” said Morlock thickly. “In A Thousand Towers.” He wondered how long it had been since he last spoke. He coughed and cleared his throat.
“Please stand, Morlock.”
He looked on her sourly. He had no intention of getting up. He didn’t like her voice, either; souther accents irritated him. Not until he felt his bare feet hit the floor did he realize just how much they irritated him.
Fortunately she was unfurling a long cloak. But as soon as he saw it he began to wave it away. It was a vivid red, cut to resemble a vocate’s cloak. In fact . . . His mind finally focused on the words she was speaking.
“Morlock Ambrosius, called syr Theorn,” she said, following the form of a ritual that had been old when his father was born, “I bring you this token at the command of your peers, who stand among the Guardians. If you accept it, they will call for your counsel and comradeship.”
There was no formally prescribed response. Astonished, Morlock said, “I accept it from them—and from you.”
“All right. Stand still and stop twitching, then.”
He stood still. Aloê came to him and put the cloak across his shoulders. The fresh warm scent of her hair mixed disturbingly with the wintry draft from the window. Her eyes met his again as she stepped back.
“It looks well,” she said. “I borrowed it from Naevros, and I wasn’t sure . . . well, if it would fit.”
This was an oblique reference to his shoulders, Morlock supposed. The appraising look in her eyes bothered him; he was achingly conscious of his bare legs, exposed beneath the hem of his shirt. “It fits,” he confirmed brusquely. “Thanks,” he added, as her appraisal turned to surprise.
“You might need to grow into it, after all,” she said, laughing. “You should see to that. Good fortune, Vocate Morlock. Maybe we’ll meet again in A Thousand Towers, or elsewhere.”
“It seems likely,” he said to her back, and “Good fortune,” to the closing door. He was sure she had meant something by that last remark, but he was unsure what it was.
“Why, you sorry piece of northern fungus,” said Deor, when he and Tyr looked in a few moments later, trays of food and drink in their hands, “are you telling me you don’t know what she meant?”
Morlock, who had just told him
exactly that, lifted his crooked shoulders in a shrug.
“That was probably her last task as a thain. At the next Station of your Graith, she’ll be a vocate, too—in the regular way. I take it there’s some special procedure for hopeless cases like yourself.”
“Stop barking at him, Deor. He’s been unconscious for four days. And, Morlock, go back to bed before you fall down!”
In fact, Morlock did feel unsteady. He carefully took off his red cloak and climbed into bed. His harven kin came and sat at his bedside, and they talked for a long while as Morlock slowly but steadily ate and drank everything his kin had brought with them.
The two dwarves had been changed by their separate ordeals, Morlock noticed. Tyr looked a little withered, frailer than he had been. But Deor was one of the rokhleni and a companion of legends, as Morlock now heard.
After each of them had told his story, they exchanged general news. Tyr had been seated again in the Eldest’s Chair, but he would not displace Vetr from authority. “It was long overdue that he take up the task. I have much to teach him, but there is more he must learn by himself. And—it will be good to have a rest.”
And Deor was to join the Guardians. He announced this rather diffidently, when they were discussing Tyr’s adventures. The Eldest had taken the gray cape as a formality when he followed Earno into Haukrull (it being a violation of the First Decree for Guardians to have authority over the Guarded). Morlock assumed that Tyr had been released from the obligation after returning from Haukrull, but then was told that Deor had assumed it instead.
“It was a way to solve certain problems,” said Deor, looking wryly at Tyr, though speaking to Morlock. “As the Eldest is so gently reminding us, he won’t live forever. And, although Vetr is a good fellow, no one can say we ever saw eye to eye.”
“That passed,” said Tyrtheorn, quoting the proverb, “and so may this.”
“Wolves may eat onions,” said Deor, quoting another.
Morlock was pleased to hear that Trua and her people had safely arrived at Thrymhaiam.
“She arrived yesterday,” Deor said, “with that very strange vocate they call Jordel. Your friends, the thains of Northtower, were with them. Just think! Now you can give them orders.”
Morlock found the prospect uninviting. It must have showed on his face, for Deor laughed and Tyr changed the subject.
“Most of your peers,” his harven father said, “have already left Thrymhaiam. They are pursuing the remnants of the guile through the north. It’s unfortunate, in a way; I’d gotten quite fond of some of them. Particularly Earno.”
“Earno is a great partisan of yours, these days,” Deor informed Morlock, “but he is mixed metal, in my opinion. Badly mixed metal.”
“It would be a narrow mind,” said Tyr, “that could be filled by a single thought. Or a narrow heart, that never had conflicting feelings. Earno has his weaknesses, but he is not narrow. He does not grudge.”
“I do,” said Deor. “But does anyone notice?”
When his kin had left him to go to the New Year’s Night feast, Morlock stood for a long time at the open window. He watched the three moons, reddish and somber, set in the east, beyond Haukr’s black outline. He listened to the sound of cymbals and bells, ringing out from every part of Thrymhaiam welcoming a new year and a winter season beyond hope. He breathed the bitter air and felt his mind grow clear and cold.
He no longer ached for vengeance or death. The terrible feelings that had driven him to the edge of destruction were still within him; they were part of living, just as death was part of life. But they would not rule him. He would live his life and die.
It was all one, brilliantly clear and simple in his mind. He thought of it as a single act, like crossing a room to open a door. Whatever Other Ilk or dwarves had done in their lives before him, all that was over and done. Whatever he bore from it was something other than guilt. He was not his father. He was not either of his fathers. He would live his life and die.
Deciding he was strong enough to join the feast, he shuttered the window and turned away. He crossed the room to open the door. The hall outside was lined with doors, and at either end were staircases, leading to other halls and other doorways still.
On the next day, the first day of the new year, the masked powers of Fate and Chaos, enthroned in the dark blue heart of the winterwood, reflected on the failure of their stratagem with the dragons. It had been such a clever plan; they both disagreed about that. But it had failed; the Guard was unbroken; the Wardlands were as much a threat as ever. There were many the Two Powers might blame for this, including each other, and they did, taking what angry pleasure they could in that. But one person was most guilty of thwarting their opposing wills. And he had named himself to their agent Saijok Mahr, just before he had killed the master of the guile and ruined their clever plan.
“Ambrosius,” said Torlan, the power of Fate.
“Ambrosius,” disagreed Zahkaar, the power of Chaos.
“We hate him,” Torlan said.
“Hate,” agreed Zahkaar reluctantly, then added, “I hated him first.”
“Liar. Liar.”
“You’re the liar.”
“All my decrees are true and eternal.”
“True and eternal lies.”
So the long day wore on.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
THE LANDS OF LAENT
DURING THE
ONTILIAN INTERREGNUM
Laent is a flat or shield-shaped landmass bordered by ocean to the west and south and empty space to the east; north of Laent is a region of uninhabitable cold; south of Laent is a large and largely unexplored continent, Qajqapca. Beyond that is believed to be an impassable zone of fire.
Along the western edge of Laent lies the Wardlands, a highly developed but secretive culture. It has no government, as such, but its borders are protected by a small band of seers and warriors called the Graith of Guardians.
Dividing Laent into two unequal halves, north and south, are a pair of mountain ranges: the Whitethorn Range (running from the Western Ocean eastward) and the Blackthorn Range (running from the Eastern Edge westward). There is a pass between the two mountain ranges, the Dolich Kund (later the Kirach Kund). North of the Dolich Kund there are only two human cities of any note, Narkunden and Aflraun. The rest of the north is a heavily wooded and mountainous region, inhabited by humans and others of a more or less fabulous nature (e.g., the werewolf city of Wuruyaaria).
The Whitethorn Range, by custom, forms the northern border of the Wardlands. The Blackthorn Range is divided between the untamed dragons and the Heidhhaiar (Deep Kingdoms) of the dwarves.
Immediately south of the Whitethorn Range is the wreckage of the old Empire of Ontil, ruined by its rulers’ ambitions, ineptitude, and misused powers. A period of general chaos and more or less continuous warfare obtained in these lands until the advent of the Vraidish tribes and the rise of the Second Empire of Ontil (some generations after the present story).
South of the former Empire of Ontil lay the so-called Kingdom of Kaen. The ancient cities of the Kaeniar considered themselves at perpetual war with the Wardlands, which lay just across the Narrow Sea. The Wardlands, however, took little notice of the Kaeniar, or any other domain of the unguarded lands.
The region between the Grartan Mountains and the Whitethorns was called the Gap of Lone by inhabitants of the unguarded lands. Inhabitants of (and exiles from) the Wardlands called it “the Maze,” because of the magical protections placed on it.
Immediately south of the Blackthorns was a wooded region of extremely poor repute, Tychar. Farther south was the Anhikh Komos of Cities, Ontil’s great rival that unaccountably failed to take advantage of Ontil’s fall to extend its domains. The largest Anhikh city, where the Kômarkh lives, is Vakhnhal, along the southern coast of Laent. Anhi may or may not extend its domain to the Eastern Edge of the world—accounts differ.
APPENDIX B
THE GODS OF LAENT
/> There is no universally accepted religious belief, except in Anhi, where the government enforces the worship of Torlan and Zahkaar (Fate and Chaos).
In Ontil an eclectic set of gods are worshipped or not worshipped, especially (under the influence of Coranian exiles from the Wardlands) the Strange Gods, including Death, Justice, Peace, Misery, Love, and Memory.
In the Wardlands at least three gods, or three aspects of one god, are worshipped: the Creator, the Sustainer, and the Avenger (“Creator, Keeper, and King”).
The dwarves of the Wardlands evidently assent to these beliefs. (At any rate, they have been known to swear by these deities.) But they have another, perhaps an older, belief in immortal ancestor spirits who watch the world and judge it beyond the western edge of the world. The spirits of the virtuous dead collect in the west through the day and night, and pass through at the moment of dawn, when the sun enters the world and the gate in the west is opened. Spirits of the evil dead, or spirits that have been bound in some way, may not pass through the gate in the west. Hence, dwarves each day (at sunrise, or when they awake) praise the rising of the sun and the passage of the good ghosts to those-who-watch in the west.
APPENDIX C
CALENDAR AND
ASTRONOMY
1. Astronomical Remarks
The sky of Laent has three moons: Chariot, Horseman, and Trumpeter (in descending order of size). The year has 375 days. The months are marked by the rising or setting of the second moon, Horseman. So that, if Horseman sets on the first day of Bayring, the penultimate month, it rises again on the first of Borderer, the last month. It sets after sunset on the first day of Cymbals, the first month of the new year. All three moons set simultaneously on this occasion. The number of months are uneven—fifteen—so that Horseman rises or sets on the first morning of the year in alternating years. Years where Horseman sets on the first day of the Cymbals are, idiomatically, “bright years”; those where Horseman sets with Trumpeter and Chariot on the first night of Cymbals are known as “dark years.”