by James Enge
The unheard thrum of a binding spell was still in the air. The killer must have spellbound Deor and Earno before beginning the grisly work. When they woke, perhaps they thought they’d had a nightmare.
The murderer would have established the wilderment over the two Guardians and the sentinel mannikins then cut the summoner’s throat. The murderer must have quickly sealed up the wounds and established the anchor spell holding the seal. All that was clear. Then the murderer seemed to have spent some time going through Earno’s clothes, or fondling his body, or something—their shadows were oddly mingled.
Repelled, Aloê’s mind drifted away. She longed to ascend further, lose herself in the bright arc of the living sky. But if she did that, she might never return to her body.
She turned away from her vision, rejecting it and the world full of life’s light. She opened her eyes on a coarse void of matter and energy: the real world, as some called it.
Aloê sighed and wearily rose to her feet. It was terrible to lug one’s greasy flesh around after one has been floating free between heaven and earth. But that was what life was all about, apparently.
Ulvana had dismounted and was stretching her legs on the field when she caught sight of Aloê returning.
“It was here,” Aloê said in reply to the unspoken but obvious question in Ulvana’s eyes.
“Do you want to look around?” Ulvana asked.
Aloê almost answered, I just did, but then she reflected that the killer might have left something physical behind. Perhaps a signed letter expressing his intent to kill the summoner or something very helpful of that sort.
In the event, they found nothing, not even a decent set of footprints. It was after dark by the time they stopped looking.
“Let’s make camp across the Road,” Aloê said to Ulvana. “I don’t like this place. Unless. . . .”
“As a matter of fact,” Ulvana admitted, “I do have a lodge on the edge of the woods. You can see it from here.”
Aloê could not see it from there, in the dim light that was leaving the world as they spoke. But she followed Ulvana’s lead, both women leading their horses, and they soon came in sight of a round bark-covered lodge. There was no open garth, but there was a neat little horse barn in back.
Ulvana seemed less happy with the food in this lodge, but Aloê didn’t care. The thought of squeezing more mass into her flesh was disgusting to her. She just drank some water from her bottle and staggered off to fall in the nearest bed.
And after a moment leapt out of it cursing. “Chaos bite me on both elbows!”
“What is it?” Ulvana asked, quite concerned.
The bed was polluted with the same greasy musk that had haunted her last night. Did every lumberjack in Easthold use the filthy stuff?
“Not worry,” she said incoherently to Ulvana, and staggered off to another bed.
This, fortunately, only smelled like the sweat of a thousand dead pigs. She drifted off to dreams of murder—one murder after another, all of them committed by a cunning pig in quest of vengeance for the invention of bacon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Among the Vraids
The dark, spiralling towers of the castle glittered with the force-wefts that held their stones in place. Moving over them, pointing out various features of defense or offense, was Ambrosia’s long-fingered hand. Its shadow fell on the blue brightstone trail meant to represent the River Tilion. Ambrosia leaned over the castle in her enthusiasm and invited Morlock to look at details in the courtyard.
But Morlock was stuck on a broader issue. “Is there an island in the river where you’re planning to build this?”
“It’s worse than that—much worse! There isn’t even a river. We’ll have to divert it after we dig a decent port some distance away from the Old City of Ontil.”
“What will you call the new city?”
“Ontil, obviously, Morlock. Don’t be so dense. We will get people to accept this new empire by pretending it is the old one returned.”
“Which it will not be.”
“Obviously not. Obviously not. We wouldn’t want any follies like the Ontilians committed in the Fimbar Dynasty.”
“Er.”
“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? Honestly, brother. You people in the Wardlands never study any history but your own, and since you don’t really have any history. . . . What do you do with your time, again?”
“We enjoy dancing and other amusements.”
“I’ll bet you do. I’ll just bet you do. Go choke on your own elbow, you supercilious son-of-a-bitch, or at least give me some advice on the supports for these walls.”
“Eh.” Morlock looked at the model again. “I’ve never constructed something on that scale. There’s nothing like it in the Wardlands. I’d want Vetr’s opinion: he’s a good builder; it was his mastery before Oldfather Tyr died.”
“It’ll be something new then.”
“Everything in your empire will be new. Except the name.”
“And it won’t be my empire. These fat-headed Vraids won’t accept a woman ruling in her own name.”
“Hm.”
“Don’t grunt at me. Do not do that. I’m warning you for the last time.”
Morlock grunted dubiously and then went so far as to add, “But you seem to be ruling it now, while this Lathmar the Old occupies himself with breeding heirs.”
“People tolerate that because it will all come to end when Uthar becomes king. Whichever Uthar it is.”
“I don’t understand that.”
“You’re not stupid enough, is the problem. If you were it would be obvious that the King of the Vraids must be named Lathmar Utharson or Uthar Lathmarson.”
“It must make their history confusing.”
“They don’t really have history, either—just chronicles and myths.”
“In the future, they will have a history.”
“Yes.”
“And it will be of the Second Ontilian Empire—not the Kingdom of the Vraids.”
“Yes.”
“Why not an Empress Ambrosia then?”
“Stop mocking me, Morlock. The fact that you’re the only one who would dare do it does not mean that you get to do it all the time.”
Morlock held out his hands and opened them. “I’m not mocking you. I’m saying the future is not the past. That’s all.”
“All right, then. Now that I’ve showed you my toy, tell me about this dragon business again. I don’t think I like it.”
Morlock told it to her again.
“Good fortune to you, Prince Uthar. I’m here with Prince Uthar to see Prince Uthar. Could you send Prince Uthar to ask Prince Uthar where Prince Uthar might be?”
“Which Prince Uthar?” asked Prince Uthar.
“Well, there you have me, I’m afraid,” Deor admitted. “This lad and me are supposed to see the Prince Uthar in charge around here. The Regent requires it.”
“Oh,” said the Prince Uthar who was lounging behind the table. “That’ll be Uthar-Null Landron.” He turned to a young boy in a gold-worked tunic standing by the door of the booth. “Prince Uthar—”
Kelat drew his stabbing spear. “The next man or dwarf that says the name ‘Uthar’ will get this spearblade through his nose. And it you think I’m joking, remember what happened to Magister Harbim.”
The atmosphere in the tent grew perceptibly chillier. The Uthar behind the table lounged more stiffly, at any rate, and glared at Kelat. The Utharling at the door suppressed a snorted laugh.
“You don’t take your heritage seriously enough, young Pr—Kelat,” the Uthar behind the table said sternly. “You there—Glennit. Quit your giggling and find out where Landron is. If he can’t come here, come back here and lead these . . . these two back to him. Regent’s orders.”
“As the Regent commands!” shouted Glennit enthusiastically, and ran like a shurgit out of the booth into the dim day.
“What happened to Harbim?” Deor asked, when the silen
ce became uncomfortable—which was right away.
“He could tell you himself,” said the Uthar behind the table grimly, “if your friend there hadn’t broken his jaw.”
Kelat sheathed his sword and looked ashamed and angry.
“Never mind it, my friend,” Deor said. “I bet it was a rotten jaw that deserved breaking.”
“I don’t know,” Kelat said guiltily. “He was always riding me about something. Saying I wasn’t good enough to be the next King of the Vraids. As if anyone ever said that was going to happen.”
“How many of you are there, anyway?”
“Too many.”
“Three hundred and fifty and three,” said table-Uthar proudly, “as of this morning, when the King’s ninth alternate wife gave birth to a son.”
From the crazy look in Kelat’s eyes, they were about to see the color of his spearblade again. Deor silently said a prayer to Oldfather Tyr for something to calm down the young man or at least distract him. Then he readied himself to tackle Kelat if he drew his weapon again. Prayer was all right, but Deor strongly believed that Those-Who-Watch helped those who helped themselves.
A new shape darkened the doorway of the booth: a very tall man, broad-shouldered, his back straight, and with a majestic mane of gray hair and a beard to match. Deor took beards seriously, and he felt immediately that this was a man to respect.
“My boy!” cried the old man and rushed in. “I heard you were back! We were so worried about you, your mother and I.”
“You don’t even remember my name. Or my mother.”
“Your name’s Uthar, of course. And you mother was Kyllia—is Kyllia. We had a late supper just last month. A very late supper! I think we understand each other, oh? Oh? Oh?”
“I understand you perfectly, sire.”
“She’s as fertile a cow as any I’ve put in kindle. How many of you are there? Seven?”
“Five brothers and four sisters, sire.”
“Oh, the girls don’t matter.”
“I disagree, sire.”
“Shut your mouth, you insolent little prick!” hissed table-Uthar.
The king’s pale face also darkened with anger, but then he smiled. “Not at all, not at all!” Lathmar said. “The next King of the Vraids will have to think for himself.”
Kelat said evenly, “I’ll mention it to him when I see him, sire.”
Deor felt it was time for a diplomatic stomp on Kelat’s toes. He narrowly missed—the boy had superb reflexes—but his action drew the king’s attention to him and away from the misbehavior of the Prince Uthar called Kelat.
Lathmar the Old looked Deor up and down and said, “Hm! You’re not one of mine, are you?”
“No, sire,” Deor said politely. “I’m Deor syr Theorn, Thain to the Graith of Guardians, harven-kin to your regent, Lady Ambrosia Viviana. I’m honored to meet you.”
“Hm! From the Wardlands, eh? Wardic dwarf?”
“Yes, sire,” said Deor, though he didn’t really like the sound of that.
“Well, we do very well for ourselves out here, you know,” the great king said. “Lady Ambrosia has hundreds of dwarves down from the mountains sometimes. They do a lot of our digging, you see.”
“Yes, sire.”
“I don’t understand all of the digging, as a matter of fact, but the Lady Ambrosia assures me it is necessary and that it might as well be done by a pack of filthy dwarves as by honest Vraidish gentlemen.”
“Majesty,” whispered table-Uthar nervously.
“Oh? Oh? Oh?” the old king said in evident confusion. “Oh? Oh? Oh? Oh? Have I said something untoward? Set me straight, boys. Set me straight. Keep me honest. What was I saying?”
“You were insulting my friend, sire,” said Kelat coolly.
“Uh, what? No! No! I don’t think so. Was I?” The doddering old man turned to Deor with a tear in his eye.
“Don’t mind it, your majesty,” said Deor. “We do like to dig. And it’s no fun if you stay clean while you do it; that’s a fact.”
“Fun, is it? Fun. Hm. I would like to have fun, I think. Perhaps I should try it. Yes, I think I will try it. You—you there. You—Prince Uthar. Get me a shovel. That’s what you dig with, isn’t it? I’m going to have some fun, for once.”
“Alas, sire, I believe it’s time for your nap,” gurgled table-Uthar in a fit of desperate invention.
“Nap,” said Lathmar, Great King of All the Vraids, quietly. “Nappy nap nap. Yes. I would like a nap. Where—where’s my nurse? Where’s Magistra Gullinga? I—I—”
The old king wandered out as abruptly as he had wandered in, and both of the Prince Uthars present drew a sigh of relief.
“They shouldn’t let him wander around alone,” Kelat said.
“That Gullinga frail is no better than a paper hat in the rain,” said table-Uthar.
“If she has a son he won’t be named Uthar,” Kelat agreed.
“Don’t be so sure. He wasn’t joking about that late supper with Kyllia, although it was Kyllia from Fishtown, not your mother.”
“My mother’s dead.”
“And resting undisturbed. I thought you’d want to know. There’s not much the old fool won’t stick his penis in, except—”
Table-Uthar’s voice faded to a whisper, faded out entirely.
Deor turned to see his old friend Ambrosia in the doorway. He was about to speak to her when she drew the sword at her hip and struck at the gaping prince behind the table.
Kelat uttered an inarticulate cry of protest and, drawing his spear, leapt between Ambrosia and her intended victim. The blades clashed and Ambrosia stepped back, on guard, watchful.
Morlock walked into the booth and said dryly, “Kelat. Deor. Prince Uthar. Ambrosia, what are you doing?”
“What are you doing, Uthar Kelat?” Ambrosia said. “Unless I’m mistaken, you and Uthar Olthon detest each other. Yet here you are risking death for him. You are risking death—aren’t you aware of it? Before your mother’s grandparents were born I was learning to fence against the best swordsman in the world.”
“Second-best,” Deor said firmly. He admired Morlock very much, but the truth was the truth. (Morlock favored him with a rare smile, but no one else seemed to notice he had spoken at all.)
Kelat shook his head and held his ground. “I can’t let that. . . . I have to do something about it.”
“All right,” said Ambrosia patiently. “But why?”
“He spoke the truth!” shouted Kelat. “Someone should make that old man keep his pants on! You can’t kill someone for telling the truth!”
“A disappointing answer,” Ambrosia said, sheathing her sword. “Of course I can kill someone for speaking truth. If I had killed your half-brother for doing so, he wouldn’t have been the first man I killed for that very reason. A ruler of men does what she must, Kelat. You must learn that, or you will never be a ruler of men.”
“So what?” muttered Kelat, and sheathed his own sword.
She shrugged her crooked shoulders and turned to open-mouthed, motionless table-Uthar. “Prince Uthar Olthon, remind me of your task here.”
The hapless prince closed his mouth with a snap, opened it and closed it again without speaking, and finally managed to say, “Lady Regent, I keep track of the whereabouts and well-being of all the princes.”
“And you do that from in here?”
“Lady, I recruited a cadre of the younger princes to run messages for me around the camp. They either know where everyone is or know who knows. You called it an ingenious system once.”
“And so it is. From now on, though, you have a single task. You are to keep track of King Lathmar at all times and keep him out of trouble. That does not mean—” she paused to glare at Kelat “—making him keep his pants on. It does mean making sure he takes them off only in private, and does not otherwise tarnish the majestic name his grandfather wore so proudly in another age of the world.”
“Yes, Lady. I will, Lady. May I use my young messengers?”
“No, your successor will need their services.”
“Very well, Lady Regent.”
There was a brief silence.
“Prince Uthar Olthon,” Ambrosia said gently.
“Yes, Lady?”
“Where is King Lathmar?”
“I—” Olthon sighed and got to his feet. “Your pardon, gentles,” he muttered, and left the booth.
“I feel like a walk, myself,” Ambrosia said. “Won’t you join me, my friends?”
They filed out of the booth’s narrow door into Uthartown. Ambrosia strode alongside Morlock, and Deor and Kelat walked behind.
It was strange for Deor to look on the decent-sized village and know that everyone (or almost everyone) in it was named Uthar, and that each Uthar was also the son of the demented old man he had just met. There were a pair of decrepit old geezers playing drafts—sitting on the ground between a couple of booths, with a board scratched into the dirt and chunks of rock for counters.
“Haha, Uthar! King me, you bitch of a bitch’s bastard!” crowed one of the relics.
“I’ll king you with this,” replied his opponent, briefly grabbing his sagging trousers at the crotch.
These princes looked far more decrepit than their father. But some of their half-brothers were playing naked in the mud nearby. Deor was no judge of human pups, but he guessed these were two or three years old at most.
“Lady Ambrosia,” said Deor, “can you explain to me about all these Uthars?”
“The next king must be named Uthar, so—”
“I do understand that,” Deor interrupted, earning a respectful look from Kelat. “But is it quite usual in the unguarded lands for a man to have hundreds of children?”
“Well, that’s my fault, I suppose,” Ambrosia admitted.
“Madam,” said Deor, not knowing what else to say.
Ambrosia looked back at Deor and then quizzically at Morlock. “He fears there may be some scandal,” Morlock explained.
“Oh? Well, it’s not scandalous. A long time ago—well, Lathmar and I, we helped each other out of a tight place.”