by James Enge
“And, in truth, some of your people could help us carry the prisoner,” Deor added. “Morlock has some transport arranged, but it is a ways away, I believe. We expected Kelat to be walking. Candidly, I am surprised the man is still unconscious.”
“He did have brain surgery earlier today,” Morlock pointed out. “That was before I bashed his head against a wall.”
“Eh, harven. If I’m ever imprisoned in a lockhouse, please don’t break in and rescue me. But, Teyn. . . .”
“Certainly!” Teyn called a few Silent Men over and gave orders: so many to accompany Morlock and Deor, so many to repair the lockhouse and tend to Krida and Garol, so many to return to the Hall, and so on.
Eventually they were walking westward again, past the front of the lockhouse (where some resentful looking thains had resumed their guard post). Teyn went with them, talking of this and that with Deor.
“. . . and no matter what Morlock has planned for the next stage in the journey,” Deor said, “at least it won’t be horses. When I’m on one of those things, I feel as if I’m a mile from the ground! And one never knows when they will turn aside to eat some grass or chase a rabbit.”
“I don’t think they do that, Thain Deor,” Teyn said mildly.
“It hasn’t been proven, I admit, but consider the evidence! Rabbits eat grass; horses love grass. Why wouldn’t they eat rabbits?”
“Or the reverse.”
“The grass eating the rabbits? I’ve seen grass like that in Tychar. Mindless, vicious, carnivorous, poisonous. Never trust a vegetable, Teyn; they will only make you sad. What in the secret name of God Creator is that?”
They were deep in the Low Hills now; dwellings were rare and the paving on the road was coarser and narrower. But there was a dark shape—no, several dark shapes darkening the air between them and the moon.
“Here we are,” Morlock called up into the night.
“We see you!” replied the night. “Stop moving. And ware claws.”
“‘Ware claws,’” repeated Deor, and there was no real danger of him moving.
Three winged pieces of night landed on the road before them. Their pelts or feathers were black, at least in the blank, cold light of the major moons. Their hindquarters were like horses with long feathery tails, except that they had claws instead of hooves. Their wings were as wide as dragons, and their forequarters were like birds of prey—dark hawks with silver eyes.
And they were saddled, and the saddles held riders. Deor relaxed when he recognized the riders.
“Good night and greetings to you, Guardians!” he called. “What brings you flying this way?”
Naevros dismounted from the nearest hippogriff and said, “The same that brings you, Guardian!”
“I was afraid of that,” Deor remarked quietly, and looked reproachfully at Morlock.
Naevros greeted each one of the Silent Men by name, which surprised Morlock, and then he embraced Morlock, which surprised him even more.
“There was trouble at the lockhouse, I see?” he guessed, nodding toward the snoring prisoner.
Morlock nodded.
“Maybe I should have been there,” Naevros said ruefully.
“No,” Morlock said, thinking of Noreê and the danger of exile. “Besides,” he said, noticing the stink of sex rising from Naevros’ clothes, “you had other work.”
Naevros snickered in a way that made Morlock think less of him, pounded Morlock on his higher shoulder, and let him go. Had he embraced him to show friendship or advertise his conquest? Naevros thought of his sexual experiences that way, Morlock knew: as conquests.
Now the other vocates had dismounted: Sundra and Keluaê. They approached to greet Morlock and Deor, and to be introduced to the Silent Men. Some account was given of the raid on the lockhouse and its aftermath, with Deor and Teyn doing much of the talking.
The scents of Sundra and Keluaê mingled oddly with Naevros’ in the cold night air. Had he had sex with one or both of them? It was none of Morlock’s business. After Morlock had sex he usually sponged himself off before meeting people, but perhaps that was excessively prudish. Had he been raised by human beings, he felt he might understand these things better.
“And now, I suppose . . .” Sundra began, looking at Morlock with eyes like pools of shadow in the moonlight.
“Yes; we must go,” Morlock agreed. “Thanks for bringing your friends, Sundra.”
“They brought us! As you saw. They know full well that the times are full of danger; they feel the sickness in the sun, the coldness in the sky, better than we can understand. And they will take you far along your way. But. . . .”
“Say on, Vocate. We won’t be offended.”
“Hippogriffs are not horses. You will not direct them. If you attempt it—well, do not.”
“We won’t,” Deor assured her, faintly but sincerely.
“The saddles are for your convenience, and they are a great concession. I must ask you to take them off and discard them when the hippogriffs have taken you as far as they choose.”
“We’ll take them off and destroy them,” said Morlock, loud enough for the hippogriffs to hear. He hoped they understood Wardic.
“Good! They call themselves ‘the Free People’ and they much despise anything that can be tamed.”
Morlock nodded.
“Goodbye then!” said Naevros. “Good luck! Send word when you can!” He embraced him again.
Sundra and Keluaê also stepped forward to embrace . . . Deor, of whom they were extremely fond. They shook hands with Morlock, and Teyn held up his hands when Morlock turned to say goodbye to him and his Guildmen.
“There are no words of parting between us, Ambrosius,” Teyn said. “We are always together. Good luck on your quest. Your luck will be the world’s luck, I think.”
Morlock nodded and turned away. With Deor’s help, he lifted Kelat across a hippogriff’s saddle and bound him there. Deor and he each mounted a hippogriff.
They stayed there without moving, waiting for something, some sign.
“My friend,” said Morlock, “bear me where you will, as far as you will.”
The hippogriff leapt into the air and the others followed, their wings booming like storm winds on the chill evening air. They turned toward the red moons lowering in the east and flew away.
So Vocate Morlock Ambrosius left the Wardlands on the wings of a hippogriff and the winds of the world, never to return.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Needle of Sunlight
The hippogriffs landed them among the foothills of the eastern Whitethorns in the hour before dawn. They had stayed to watch with their star-silver eyes while Morlock kindled a fire and burned the saddles. Once the saddles were largely embers they unfolded their wings and took to the sky again, black shadows against the cold gray sky of morning. Neither Morlock nor Deor ever heard them make a sound with their mouths. Nor did Kelat, but he didn’t seem to be hearing anything: he was still unconscious.
“That,” said Deor, “was the worst thing you have ever done to me. But at least I know now that nothing can ever be worse. No method of travel could possibly be more hellish than flying those speechless beasts over half the chaos-begotten world.”
Morlock thought it was reckless to make suppositions of this sort, given that their journey had hardly begun. What he said aloud, however, was, “Eh.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Too easy, if we come right down to it, harven.”
“Eh.”
“Have it your way. What are you going to do with our friend here?”
“I am going to stab him through the eye with a needle of sunlight.”
“Well, I suppose you feel that’s—Is that some kind of metaphor?”
“No.”
“Why are you going to do such a ridiculous thing?”
“When I was staying at New Moorhope after—it was some years ago—”
“Yes, harven, I remember it. Go on.”
“The healers there woke a woman from
a coma this way.”
“Urrrr. All right. What if it doesn’t work? He’s not much good to us as he is. In fact, he’ll die if he doesn’t wake up eventually. Unless you can think of a way to get water and nourishment into his veins while he sleeps.”
Morlock grunted.
“I wish you would expand on that, Morlock.”
“Eh. It’s a solvable problem. But it doesn’t solve our problem. We might let him die, and try to extract knowledge from the dead brain, or we might extract his brain from his body before it dies and try to bespeak it in some way.”
“Well, well. Let’s make this sun-needle thing work, then.”
“Yes.”
Morlock set up an immaterial shell of impulse foci around the fire, making it into an impromptu furnace. Deor found a deposit of sandstone and quarried some to bring back. Using some tongs he happened to have in his backpack (unlike Morlock, he did not believe in travelling light), he placed the fragments in the invisible furnace to begin the glass-making process.
By then, Morlock was deep in rapture, lying like a dead man next to Tyrfing, the crystalline blade glowing black-on-white and white-on-black.
“If you don’t mind,” Deor said to Morlock, “I’m going to have a nap. We may be up all night again.”
Morlock said nothing, but Deor didn’t expect it. He went and wrapped himself in his bedroll and dreamed for five solid hours about flying in the dark over the Wardlands. It was like a nightmare, only he was never afraid.
He awoke in midmorning. Kelat was still unconscious, and his breathing seemed shallower than it ought to be.
“Brains,” said Deor disgustedly, and went over to the invisible forge.
The sandstone was now a globe of dark molten glass with a skewer of golden light in its heart. Morlock was still in deep rapture, keeping the glass hot and guiding the harvest of sunlight.
Deor made an early lunch of grilled sausage, softtack bread, and stromroot sauce. He brooded while he ate: there must be something he could do while Morlock did the real work.
Deor was not the master of all makers; this he knew. He was a plausible seller of goods, a skilled juggler, a good fighter, a decent cook and storyteller, and all these things were valued by his people. But he was not much of a maker, and this was the thing they (and he) valued most.
But he guessed that Morlock’s needle of sunlight would be a precarious instrument to wield in colder lights: moonlight and starlight. If this attempt were going to work—and he very much wanted it to work (“Brains!”)—then Morlock would need a Zone of Perfect Occlusion. Deor set about establishing one near to the invisible furnace.
The Perfect Occlusion is an immaterial barrier that does not allow light to pass. To Deor’s mind, it ought to have been reflective, but a well-formed occlusion looks like a space where there simply is no light. The geometry of the Occlusion puts the light elsewhere.
Deor was no champion at multidimensional geometry, but he had developed a trial-and-error method that worked, given enough time. With no one to talk to, no books to read, and nothing else to do, he had plenty of time. By the time the sun had passed its midpoint and the chilly spring day was at its closest approach to warmth, he stood in triumph next to a stable Occlusion—a half-globe of darkness six paces in diameter. Six of Deor’s paces, admittedly—about three or four of Morlock’s rather oversized strides. That should be big enough.
He was revisiting his decision to bring food instead of books when he remembered that Morlock had tucked a few volumes into his pack. Deor snuck over to look at them.
One was in a language that Deor didn’t read or recognize. One was a book of mathematical philosophy. One was a book of stories about monsters; it wasn’t clear whether the stories were true or not. Rather discontentedly, he settled down on a comfortable rock with the book of monsters and read for a time.
As the red, cold sun sank nearer the eastern horizon, Morlock rose to his feet. Deor looked up and saw that Morlock was still in the rapture of vision. He plunged his glowing sword into the dark orb of molten glass.
The sword faded. The light behind Morlock’s closed lids also faded, and he opened his eyes.
Deor tossed the monster book into Morlock’s open pack and said, “Over here, harven.”
“See it,” Morlock croaked. “Thank you. Bring Kelat, eh?”
“Shouldn’t you rest? If—”
“Time is short. Hurry.”
Deor grabbed the nigh-lifeless form of Kelat and dragged him by the collar into the Zone of Perfect Occlusion.
Morlock had already entered. The globe of glass was cooling unevenly; in the light cast by the narrow spiralling blaze of sunlight in the globe’s core, Deor could see cracks opening in the surface of the globe.
Morlock speeded up the process by putting the globe down on the dark ground and twisting his blade like a knife.
The globe of dark glass shattered and the thread of light lay bare. Morlock picked it up in his right hand. It cast strange shadows on his face; Deor didn’t like it. (But he remembered the alternatives. Brains!)
“Pull one of his eyes open,” Morlock croaked.
Deor wondered which one he should choose. He crouched down beside Kelat and held open both the stranger’s eyes. They were stark and staring in the strange light, their pupils gaping wide in the dark.
Morlock thrust the needle of light into Kelat’s left eye, spearing the dark pupil in its exact center.
Kelat’s eye like a thirsty mouth drank down the light. Darkness fell like a thunderbolt in the Perfect Occlusion.
Kelat began to scream and thrash.
“Out with him!” Morlock hissed.
Morlock must have had the stranger’s feet; Deor grabbed one of his arms and they dragged Kelat into the dim light of a cool spring evening.
Now Kelat was sobbing with his face in the dirt. He lifted himself onto all fours and then sat back heavily, staring around him with weeping eyes.
“What’s your name?” Deor said, curious whether the stranger remembered it.
“I’m Kelat,” said the stranger. “You . . . you were in the dream. So was the other. I saw the other one in hell. Is he a devil?”
“No.”
“He looks like a devil.”
“What does a devil look like?”
“Him.”
Morlock hawked and spat. He went over to his waterbottle and drank. Then he came back and offered the bottle to Kelat.
The stranger took the bottle suspiciously and sniffed at it. Then he looked relieved and took a sip. At last he drank deep and handed the bottle back to Morlock. “Thanks, friend.”
“Why a friend, now, and not a devil?” Deor asked. “Or is he both?”
“The devil doesn’t drink water,” Kelat said, as if everyone should know this. “But I still don’t understand why you were in hell, or how I got out.”
“It wasn’t hell,” Deor explained, “just a jail. Although there were resemblances, from the little I saw of the place. I’m Deor syr Theorn, by the way. This is my friend and harven-kin Morlock Ambrosius.”
“Yes,” Kelat said slowly. “Yes—I was afraid of that.”
“Why ‘afraid’?” Deor asked.
“I will not say at this time. I owe you both much, but some things I must keep to myself.”
“Can you say why you came into the Wardlands, and how?”
“Was that where I was?”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“No. No. I think the dragon sent me. He put—he had someone put something in me. In my—in my face—or in my brain. I don’t feel it there anymore. Two of your order took it out of me.”
“You know our order then?”
“Of course. You are members of the Graith of Guardians.”
“You speak Wardic extremely well.”
“We call it ‘the secret speech’ in the unguarded lands. I had a Coranian tutor who helped me with it.”
“How many languages do you speak?” Morlock asked.
&nb
sp; “The secret speech, and Vraidish, and what they call Ontilian. But I cannot read the old script.”
“And that is why you were sent on this mission?” Morlock asked. “Because of your skill with languages?”
“I sent myself!” Kelat insisted. “At least . . . I set out on my own. But it was not to the Hidden Land . . . the Wardlands, as you call it. There was a dragon in the empty places west of the Sea of Stones; the Gray Folk there worship him as a god. He is said to know many things. I thought he might know how to heal the sun.”
“Rulgân Silverfoot,” said Deor.
“His right foreclaw is metal, it is true,” Kelat said. “But there is a gem there that keeps it alive. I found him. I . . . I was trapped by him. It was he who sent me to you. I don’t know why. Most of that time is a dream to me. I remember talking, or him talking through me, but I don’t remember the words.”
“Could you find him again?” Deor asked.
Kelat bowed his head and thought. “I will not be taken prisoner again,” he said. “I will not let that thing in my mind again. But I do want to face him again, yes. And kill him if I can, before the sun goes dark. But why do you want to find him?”
“We want what you wanted,” Deor assured him, “to heal the sun. Rulgân may know who is killing it. If we can find that out, we can stop it. But that will be our errand, not killing dragons—as enjoyable an occupation as that may be.”
Kelat looked at Morlock. “He talks,” Kelat said. “Does he talk for you?”
“About this we are of one mind,” Morlock said.
“Well, I will take you to find Rulgân Silverfoot. I owe you much. I was standing in the gate of Death’s city when you called me back.”
“Eh.”
“That means,” Deor said, “‘Maybe you can return the favor sometime.’ Morlock doesn’t say much. I say we eat and sleep and start out sometime after midnight.”
Morlock nodded and turned toward his backpack, no doubt to break out the flatbread and dried meat.
“Morlock syr Theorn,” Deor said sternly, “I beg you to leave that stuff alone until we have to choose between it and death by starvation. I have food enough for all three of us tonight, and we can seek more tomorrow. Now—I’m thinking sandwiches of toasted cheese, sausages, and a few pieces of fruit. I have a bottle of Old Vunthorn we can share as well. Really, Kelat, you must take my word on this. Morlock may have dragged you out of jail and out of the jaws of death, but I’m the one who just saved you from hell.”