The Wide World's End

by James Enge

  Noreê waved a scarred, ice-pale hand. “A temporary measure. I’ve no longing for kingship, I assure you.”

  “What if others long to make you king?” Aloê replied.

  “Nonsense. I’m no Ambrose. You came to talk to Ulvana, I guess?”

  “I don’t speak nonsense, Noreê. I’m telling you something you need to hear. And, yes, I came to speak to Ulvana. If it suits you to permit it, of course.”

  “You have the wrong idea about me, Aloê. I was maintaining the Guard before you were born.”

  “As Merlin was before you were born. It is you who has the wrong idea about you, Guardian. Look to it.”

  Noreê’s pale eyes looked on her patiently and her pale lips actually smiled. She had heard what Aloê had said; she did not regard it in the least.

  “This emergency will be over soon,” she said, patting Aloê on the arm. “Let’s not quarrel about it.”

  It was maddening to Aloê that Noreê didn’t take the issue seriously—as if it were a matter of taste, like a disagreement about after-dinner cheeses. If she would not listen to Aloê now, there would come a time soon when she must be made to listen.

  They went together, but not in the same mind, to the Arbiter’s Hall of Audience.

  Ulvana was sitting in the Arbiter’s chair. There was no one in the room with her; she was not reading or writing or doing anything—just sitting there with a vacant look on her face.

  “Ulvana,” said Aloê, “the Graith of Guardians has a claim of vengeance against you. I have a writ from the Arbitrate deposing you from your rank as Arbiter and waiving vengeance on your behalf. Do you have anyone else who would choose to act for you?”

  “No,” said Ulvana in a monotone. “My family has washed their hands of me. My life is yours.”

  “The Graith will give you death or exile, on my recommendation. Will you answer my questions?”

  “I don’t care. Yes. Ask them.”

  “Did you participate in the murders of Summoner Earno and of Necrophor Oluma Cyning?”

  “No! Not exactly.”

  “Did you participate in any way in those murders? Did you know about them in advance? Did you assist the murderer afterwards?”

  Ulvana looked down for a moment, saying nothing. Then she raised her head again and gave each of the Guardians a defiant look. “The murderer. The murderer. Can’t you say his name? Is he nothing more to you than that?”

  “Tell me his name. Tell me what you know about this business, and I will exercise the Graith’s mercy. If not, I will execute the Graith’s vengeance.”

  “Mercy!” said Ulvana, and laughed sobbingly. “Mercy! What can you do to me that’s worse than what you’ve already done?”

  “Why, I don’t know,” said Aloê courteously. “I would ask Earno and Oluma what they think, only they’re dead, you see.”

  “It had to be you,” Ulvana moaned. “The both of you. The unattainable ice princesses, white and black. The ones he never felt worthy of, so that he had to grovel in the muck. Muck like me. Like me.”

  “Listen, Ulvana, I’m no princess. I work for a living. And I’m not unattainable; just married.”

  “To that thing. That Morlock. He’s probably had you both.”

  Grim, white-haired Noreê, one of the great seers of the world and one of the three Victors of Kaen, snorted with surprised laughter. She turned away to regain her composure.

  “Here’s where it stands with me, Ulvana,” Aloê said. “I am the Graith’s vengeancer. I could kill you now, if I chose, with only the Graith to answer to.”

  “Go ahead. I want you to. I’m sick of everything.”

  “I could, and I may do the same thing to Naevros syr Tol.”

  Ulvana grew very still.

  “Or,” Aloê added, “I could exile you both. Strictly speaking, that prerogative rests with the Summoner of the City, but he is in disgrace at the moment and the Graith has delegated his power in this matter to me. I can kill you, and I assure you it will be an easy death. But I would prefer to send you into exile. With Naevros, if possible. But I need a reason to do so, a reason for the Graith to forego vengeance. Tell me what happened. Make me understand.”

  “He’d hate me,” Ulvana said, looking at something far beyond the walls of this room. “He’d hate me for the rest of his life.”

  Taking a risk, Aloê said, “He hates you now. If he loved you, he would not have put you in this hole. The question is not what he wants for you. The question is what you want for him—and what you still may get from him. If he dies, all hope dies with him. If he lives, someday he may turn to you. Who else would he have?”

  Ulvana completely broke down, weeping into her hands for what seemed an endless time. At last, she told Aloê everything she knew.

  Naevros had come back into her life a year ago, riding up to Big Rock from A Thousand Towers on some sort of business. He said he had come to respect her for making her own way in the world—that he was sorry for the way he had treated her—that he hoped it could be different now. He deployed as many lies as he needed to seduce her again, and Aloê got them all from Ulvana.

  It was about five months ago that he revealed he had an ulterior purpose in resuming the affair. That was when she knew everything he’d said was a lie. And he knew that she knew—smiled to himself as he watched her realize it. But she had already yielded her pride to him, and found that she couldn’t reclaim it—didn’t want it.

  Ulvana said, “I could feel again—really feel—surrender myself to it—not have to, to watch myself and correct myself, but be what I was meant to be! I don’t suppose either of you can understand that.”

  Aloê wasn’t interested enough in the subject to express a thought on it. What she wanted to know was what Naevros had said and done before the murder. She said placatingly to Ulvana, “We want to understand your experience so that the Graith can judge you fairly. What did Naevros say to you about the plot? What did he want done?”

  Ulvana sighed. “He said he and his allies had a plan to save the Wardlands, but that it was risky, and not all of the Graith would be willing to take the risk. He said that he was to eliminate the Summoner Earno, and perhaps others if it came to it. He said—he said—I was the only person he could trust!”

  “I’m sure he did.”

  “Are you? Are you? I wish I could be. I had timber lodges near the Road, and he knew it. I knew the lands all around here, and he knew it. I was Arbiter of the Peace, charged with investigating murders hereabouts, and he knew it. But I think he trusted me, too. Don’t you think so?”

  “He must have, to let you so deeply into his counsels.”

  “Yes. Yes, exactly!” Ulvana’s reply was frantic—so frantic that Aloê wondered if she was also worried about the alternative: that Naevros told her so much because he planned to stop her mouth with death when he was done with her.

  “What did he tell you about Oluma Cyning?”

  “Nothing, except that he had corrupted a necrophor and that she would assist in the investigation of Earno’s murder. Or do you mean afterward? When he. . . . When he. . . .”

  “Tell me about all of it.”

  “Well—he told me what I told you. When the necrophor—”

  “Oluma?”

  “Yes, her. When she came to town she told me what she knew about the plot, and warned me not to trust the healer—”

  “Denynê.”

  “Yes, her. The necrophor warned me not to trust the healer, as Naevros had been unable to get at her.”

  “Seduce her, you mean?”

  “I suppose. I suppose that was what she meant. She laughed when she said it.”

  “Oluma herself succeeded at that, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.” Ulvana wrinkled her nose in matronly disapproval. “She bragged about it to me—thought it was funny. That’s what the whole business was for her; a grim sort of, of lark.”

  “But Oluma didn’t manage to drag Denynê into the conspiracy?”

  “As far
as I know, she didn’t try. She wasn’t that interested; it was just one more game in all the games she was constantly playing. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Naevros had to kill her.”

  “But you were surprised?”

  “Yes, it. . . . I was surprised, yes.” And frightened, too, Aloê thought, looking at Ulvana’s face now and remembering it then, when they had found Oluma in the corpse-house. Frightened that Naevros was getting rid of his fellow conspirators: that was Aloê’s guess. Ulvana lived simultaneously with two different versions of Naevros: the hero of her love-romance, and the cold-hearted seducer and murderer.

  “What was your role in all this?” Aloê asked. “What did he want you to do?”

  “I showed him the . . . the lay of the land, I suppose. He spent some time at my old lumber camps. He wanted me to report to him how the investigation went. And, of course, he stayed with me after it, after the thing.”

  “After he had murdered Earno.”

  “Yes, that. He could not afford to be seen—there was a simulacrum of himself he had left in the North to give himself an alibi. So he was with me for a number of days. That was. . . . That was a good time.”

  Because she’d had her beloved all to herself, Aloê thought. And, of course, he would have been at his most charming; his plan depended on keeping Ulvana happy.

  “Did you attempt to mislead me at any time?” Aloê asked.

  “Only by omission. Naevros warned me about that in a letter, as soon as he found out that you would be the Graith’s vengeancer. He said I should act as I would if . . . if I were not involved. He said you would know if I did not. He rates your cleverness very highly. More highly than he does mine. And he’s quite right, of course. I still don’t understand what you discovered in our journey together. Was it something you saw in your vision? He said he had a way of concealing his talic imprint from a seer. Did it fail him?”

  “No. Tell me, Ulvana, why did Naevros create such an elaborate murder plan? Why not arrange something less spectacular, something that might have passed as an accident?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t his idea. His partners—his seniors, he called them—they insisted on it. They said they needed to be sure they put Earno out of the way; he was blocking some important task they had in hand. And if an attempt was made and failed, it might draw suspicion.”

  “If you strike at the king, you must kill him,” Noreê said, somewhat blasphemously. Ulvana started a little in her chair: she had forgotten the older vocate was there.

  Aloê met Noreê’s cool gaze and they both nodded: they were done here.

  “Ulvana,” said Aloê, “I’ll consider your case and consult my peers in the Graith. In the meantime, you must be under guard. The thains here, or some others, will take you to the High Arbitrate in A Thousand Towers.”

  “I don’t wish to go there. I don’t want to see those people.”

  “You must go somewhere, and you can’t stay here.”

  “Yes. I see that. I don’t want to stay here, either. Aloê, I’ve answered your questions; won’t you answer mine? What did you discover that led you to Naevros?”

  Aloê hesitated before answering. But there was no obvious reason not to tell her.

  “It didn’t mean anything to me at the time,” she admitted. “But there was a scent in one of the beds I slept in at your logging shelters—a sort of sweet musk.”

  “Oh,” Ulvana said quietly. Then, “I gave him that scent. It was a present.”

  “I noticed it on him later when I met him in the city. That was what helped me guess. The proof came later.” Aloê thought of Denynê and frowned at a painful memory.

  “He said he would wear it in the city,” Ulvana said. “But I wasn’t sure. . . . I wasn’t sure whether that was only one of his lies.” She looked sharply at Aloê and seemed to be about to speak. Aloê looked straight into her eyes and she flinched.

  “Did you always despise me?” she asked plaintively, as Aloê turned to go.

  Aloê considered the question fairly. “No,” she said. “No, when I met you again in Big Rock, I sort of liked you. But that wasn’t really you, was it?”

  “It used to be,” Ulvana said sadly. “Until a year or so ago.”

  Aloê shook her head and strode away through the door. Noreê followed her out, and the thain outside folded the door shut, closing Ulvana in alone.

  “I’ll have some of my thains escort her down, if you like,” Noreê said.

  “They’re not your thains, Vocate,” Aloê said.

  Noreê smiled and nodded: a mere detail to her. “Ommil,” she said to the thain on guard, “take a couple of the others and escort Ulvana down to the High Arbitrate in the city tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes, Vocate,” said the thain.

  “What did you think of Ulvana?” Noreê asked as they turned away and walked into the street.

  “Pitiable. But I didn’t pity her.”

  “Yes. My long-dead father would have called her a real woman.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  Noreê shrugged, a gesture that reminded Aloê oddly of Morlock. “That is easier to know than to explain. She lives through her man; that is part of it. He is everything, and she is content to be nothing, if he only notices her. She is completely selfless.”

  “I’d say she’s completely selfish.”

  Noreê laughed. “You are contrary today, Vocate. How can she be selfish? She gave up everything for that man.”

  “For a price. As long as she got what she wanted, nothing else mattered: Earno’s life; Oluma’s life; Denynê’s life—anyone else’s; her principles as a member of the Arbitrate; the safety of those who trusted in her; her independence and fortune, so proudly won over a century of work. She threw all that away to satisfy an urge.”

  “You speak unkindly of love,” Noreê said, not as if she disapproved.

  “I’m not talking about love at all. Naevros purchased her with a fantasy, the way he might have purchased a meat pie with money. He offered her the pretense of love, which was enough for her. For that she sacrificed everything, not for him.”

  “Are you going to talk to him now?”

  Aloê nodded.

  “Perhaps I should ride with you,” Noreê suggested. “The presence of his two unattainable princesses might unnerve him.”

  “What is a princess anyway?”

  “A sort of female kinglet, I think. They have them in the unguarded lands. They are much sought after as mates, apparently, and people kill dragons and things to woo them.”

  Aloê, who’d had occasion to kill a dragon herself, revolved this notion in her mind. “Odd,” she said. “Yes: let’s try to shake him up.”

  They rode down to the city the next morning and arrived at Naevros’ house in the afternoon.

  There was a cloud of watch-thains on the street outside Naevros’ little house. Aloê was surprised to see them there. Naevros had been released from the Well of Healing after swearing a self-binding oath to appear before the Graith when summoned. No guards were needed, but here they were.

  Plus, they wore different badges, as if they belonged to different graiths. One group had green armbands; another sported red caps; a third wore purple leggings.

  She rode Raudhfax through the milling crowd as if they weren’t there, causing a number to jump out of the way. She dismounted and strode toward the front door, ready to throttle anyone who hindered her.

  She heard a timid voice say, “Your pardon, Vocate, but you are not allowed to enter.” She turned and prepared to leap at the speaker like a lioness taking down a deer . . . but he wasn’t speaking to her. A herd—no, three distinct herds of thain—were surrounding Noreê, who looked at them curiously with her dark blue eyes.

  “Here, you,” Aloê said to them as a body, “get away from her.”

  “I’m sorry, Vocate,” said a freckly fellow in purple leggings, “but our orders are that no one shall enter this domicile saving yourself.”

  “Ours, too,” supplied a pi
mply youth with a green armband. “And ours!” chimed in a girl in a red cap, and in general all the cattle mooed the same song.

  “Whoever may have given you those orders, and those badges of rank to go with them,” Aloê said, “you can’t suppose that their instructions are binding on us. Stand out of her way.”

  “Sorry, Vocate. Orders.”

  The herds lowed in unison: orders, orders, orders.

  Aloê was about to lay a few of them on the ground using her songbow as a club when another voice spoke, breaking the spell: “Don’t trouble yourselves, vocates. I’ll come down to you.” It was Naevros, standing at the window above his front door.

  Neither Aloê nor Noreê responded, but Naevros disappeared, and in a moment the door opened and Naevros stepped out of it.

  The thains stood out of his way as if he were carrying a bowlful of plague-infested pus. He was not. He carried nothing: not a sword at his hip, not a cloak on his shoulders against the chill of the summer day. His clothes looked old and ill-matched; there were buttons missing from the shirt and threadbare patches on the trousers. His reattached left hand hung from the end of his arm, barely moving. It had a slightly bluish look to it. He did not offer it, or the other hand, to Aloê or Naevros, but he did acknowledge their presence with a nod and a glance of his green eyes, which is more than he did for the thains.

  “Let’s go down to the Benches and have a bite to eat,” he suggested. “I don’t suppose I’ll have many more chances to eat there, one way or the other.”

  They agreed and they all walked together down the street to Naevros’ favorite cookshop.

  “How’s Verch?” asked Aloê.

  “Gone. Forever, this time,” Naevros said. “I fired him. I’d sell the house if I could find a buyer. I’ll need all the money I can get in the unguarded lands. Unless you plan to kill me.”

  “You’ll have the option of exile, of course,” Aloê said.

  “I’ll take it. Or did you imagine me drowning my sorrows in a pool of my own blood?”

  Aloê noted the bitter bantering tone in his voice and chose to ignore it. “No,” she said frankly.