by James Enge
Rokhlenu believed.
“Are we sure the spike is causing the madness?” Wuinlendhono asked. “How do we know he wasn't going mad anyway?”
Both females looked at Rokhlenu, and he said, “I knew him briefly before last year. He was…an odd and difficult male back then. But sane, I think. It must be the spike. Morlock—Khretvarrgliu, I mean—was sure of it.”
“Well,” Liudhleeo said, not looking at him but inclining her head to acknowledge his contribution, “then either we take the spike out or there's only one other choice.”
“What's that?”
“We wrap him in the tarp and dump him in the swamp. Because he's done.”
“Does it matter?” Wuinlendhono asked Rokhlenu.
“It matters,” Rokhlenu replied. With difficulty, he turned to Liudhleeo. “Can we help?”
She was eyeing him a little less coldly now. “Yes.”
Liudhleeo coated their hands with the red-brown healing salve; she said it would protect them from Morlock's fiery blood. Then she had them hold Morlock's unconscious body still. Wuinlendhono held his shoulders down; Rokhlenu put one hand under his jaw and the other on the crown of his head and held him firmly.
Liudhleeo did not anoint her own hands, but took up a long coppery knife on the end of a lead-gray stick. She knelt down beside Morlock and placed the edge of the blade over a red star-shaped scar on his temple. She deftly carved a cross into the flesh. Hot blood poured out of the wound and began to pool on the tarpaulin.
“The tarp is fireproof,” she said, noticing Rokhlenu's alarmed glance. “But don't let any of that stuff fall on the floor. Otherwise we'll have a fire in here like…”
“Clench up,” Rokhlenu said. “Worse comes to worst, we can always jump.”
“Wish I'd said that,” Wuinlendhono said, a little breathily. The scent or the sight of blood seemed to make her uneasy—Rokhlenu had never seen an adult werewolf so squeamish. He thought it odd. Of course, Morlock's blood did smell strange; maybe that was it.
Liudhleeo used a long-handled clamp to peel away a strip of Morlock's flesh, exposing the raw skull. Under the blood pulsed a sort of light, in the same rhythm as Morlock's heart. There was a squarish central locus and a fine network of pulsating lines spreading out from there.
“That's it,” Liudhleeo said, tapping the squarish center.
“It looks like it's…growing or something. Laying down roots, like a plant.”
“Maybe it is.”
“Can we get it all out, then?”
“Maybe we can.”
Liudhleeo gently but firmly inserted wedgelike probes on either side of the spike. Slowly, carefully, she worked it free from the skull and it dropped, dark as dried blood, to the tarpaulin.
“What about the lines?” Rokhlenu asked.
“I don't see them anymore. They went dark as soon as I extracted the spike. I think we're done.”
She folded back the flap of flesh with the clamps and used a longhandled spoon to dab healing salve over the small but surprisingly bloody wound. Then she set about the awkward task of mopping up the blood. With a rag, and then tossing the rag into a bucket of water when it burst into flame. It took several rags, and the bucket was already dense with them, the water oily with Ambrosial blood.
By then the glass spike had dried and was safe to touch. Rokhlenu picked it up and looked at it. The end was unpointed and rather rough. It looked as if the tip had broken off, perhaps left behind in the wound.
“I know,” said Liudhleeo, embarrassed. “But I think we've done what we can. Perhaps all will be well.”
Rokhlenu handed her the dark spike. Then he lifted the dragon tooth from around his neck and held it out to her, chain and all. Wuinlendhono twitched a little at this but said nothing.
“No,” Liudhleeo said, even more embarrassed. “I haven't earned it.”
He went down on his knees, eyes intent on her, still holding out the tooth.
She took his hand and firmly folded his fingers over the tooth. “No one but you can wear this, Rokhlenu.” She pushed his hand away, but he did not withdraw it.
“I never blamed you,” she said then, not looking at him.
“I did,” he said. “I do. But that's not what this is about. He saved me—three times, four times, I don't know how many times. And you saved him. This is all I have. If it is worthless, it is still yours.”
“Wear it for me, then,” she said.
“For you,” he said, and put the chain around his neck again. “Claim it when you like.”
She bowed her head and motioned impatiently for him to stand, so he did.
Wuinlendhono stood also. “You'll keep the book, of course, my dear,” she said, “and wear that spike like an honor-tooth. We'll discuss the filthy lucre another time.”
“I did it for Hrutnefdhu,” Liudhleeo whispered. “Khretvarrgliu is his friend, too.”
“Yes,” Rokhlenu said, remembering as if it were a thousand years before. “It was the three of us. The three of us against all of them.”
“Well,” Wuinlendhono said, gently taking his arm, “there's a few more of us now.” She guided him toward the door. “Call on me, my dear, if there's anything you need.”
“I need my Hrutnefdhu. Send him to me if you see him, please.”
They descended the dark stairs to the street, already streaked with the long shadows of a strangely summery winter's afternoon.
“Let me put it this way,” Wuinlendhono said then. “I give you a dragon's tooth as a courtship gift, and before sunset I have to watch you on your knees, begging another female to take it. Fairly accurate?”
“Yes,” Rokhlenu said glumly. “I understand if this means you're done with me.”
“You silly chunk of meat, I'm barely beginning. Five was always my lucky number. Come on along; let's see if a certified dragon slayer can't find a place to sleep indoors tonight.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE SARDHLUUN
STANDARD
Adead man who carried his severed head like a lamp was walking beneath the walls of the empty Vargulleion.
“A fine manifestation,” signified a passing snake. “But to what purpose, if no one is present to see it?”
“It pleases me,” signified War. “It reminds me of the battle that was in this prison house, while the scent of it is still fresh.”
“But the battle is over,” signified the snake, a manifestation of Wisdom. “There will be no new deaths.”
“Deaths are incidental to war, Wisdom. I'm surprised you don't know that.”
“You can't have a war without deaths, can you? What is more essential?”
“Courage, and cowardice. The need for cunning, and the uselessness of cunning. Victory. Defeat.”
“You could get all that in sporting competitions—”
“Are you trying to see if I can vomit in this manifestation?” War wondered.
“—or elections.”
“Perhaps the way the werewolves run them. I always look forward to their election year.”
“Primaries are beginning. The Sardhluun begin picking their representatives tonight.”
“Yes, and I visualize that both you and Death will be manifest there. You wish me to accompany you.”
“I do,” acknowledged Wisdom. “I dislike this plan of hers, whatever it is, and I think it may be time to reacquire her oath for our pact.”
“I did think there would be more fighting,” War admitted. “I'll go with you and see what she signifies.”
The snake and the corpse with the severed head transited-by-intention to a neighboring locus of space-time.
It was the great arena of the Sardhluun Pack. The time was well after sunset; Horseman the second moon was high in the west; the sky around it glowed indigo. All the werewolves crowding the stands had transited to wolf form.
The Incumbent's Gate swung open in the arena wall. Out of it, a werewolf trotted proudly into the center of the fighting pit. The gate slammed shut behind him. His black
fur was silvery on his muzzle. He had a great many honor-teeth: there was a great torc of them hanging around his neck. In his jaws he carried black-and-green streamers, the standard of the Sardhluun Pack. He was the incumbent gnyrrand, the citizen who, for the last year of choosing and several before, had led the Sardhluun's electoral band.
But the crowd did not esteem him: they yodeled his name in contemptuous tones: Wurnafenglu, Wurnafenglu. They called on the sacred ground of the fighting pit to swallow down the misbegotten luckless citizen who dared to pollute it. They howled insults against his relatives in elaborate verse forms.
He trotted back and forth across the arena ground, indifferent to their hostility, secure in his bite. If anyone wanted the Sardhluun standard or his honor-teeth, they would have to fight him for them.
Finally, one werewolf in the stands took up the challenge. He leapt down into the arena proper and barked a challenge. He was a whitish beast with black bristles running from his head down his spine all the way to the end of his tail. He wore a necklace of honor teeth—more than a few dangled there, though nothing like as many as the incumbent carried.
Wurnafenglu dropped the Sardhluun standard, since his right to it had been challenged.
The werewolves in the stands grew silent. They sat down to watch. The election was beginning.
A never-wolf slave entered the arena through a door set into the Incumbent's Gate. She carried two bowls of drink in her trembling hands. The spectators near at hand leaned forward to catch a scent of the deadly brew, then leaned back gasping when they did, or thought they did.
Everyone in the arena knew that the bowls contained an infusion of wolfbane.
The never-wolf slave put the bowls down in the center of the arena and backed away hastily. She ran back to the door in the Incumbent's Gate, but it was now locked and would not open for her. She was the only person present who had supposed it would.
A few werewolves chuckled mildly at her dismay, but all eyes turned now toward the Werowance of the Sardhluun, whose task tonight was to preside over the election of the pack's gnyrrand, its lead candidate in the upcoming general election. A silver-gray wolf with many cords of honor-teeth, the Werowance lay resplendent on his ceremonial black couch in a box set lower than the stands. He pressed a lever with one foot. A narrow opening appeared in the wall below him; a platform extended. On it was a ceramic bowl, brimming with antidote.
The Werowance sang what everyone knew. He was the Werowance of the Sardhluun, chosen by chance, by destiny, and by bite and by the common will of the Sardhluun. It was his duty to lead the Inner Pack in times of peace and to preside over the pack elections. This challenge would choose a representative for the general election to come. Only the strongest, the most cunning, the most ruthless of the Sardhluun could hope to carry the standard of their pack, the youngest and greatest of packs, against the corrupt beasts of the older treaty packs.
There was an incumbent, as they all knew: the detested Wurnafenglu. For many years, Wurnafenglu had tended the green-and-black standards of the Sardhluun like a herd of fat beeves. He had stood for the Sardhluun in the Innermost Pack of Wuruyaaria, even rising on occasion to the couch of the First Singer. But he had spent all his honor and all the glory of the Sardhluun in a single night of disgrace. Though he was the commander of the Vargulleion, the prison that (with the Khuwuleion) was the foundation of the pack's fortunes, he was absent on First Night, celebrating with his disgusting plurality of wives, when the prisoners rebelled. Many of his guards had died; he should have died with them. The subsidies from the city that they received for maintaining the prisoners would disappear; so should Wurnafenglu disappear. The Sardhluun were now a mockery among the older, weaker, less ruthless packs; so should Wurnafenglu be a mockery and a byword until the sun faded and the moons crunched its golden bones in their shining blue teeth. When Wurnafenglu might have done them all a favor by slinking away forever into the night of ignominy and shame, Wurnafenglu insisted on standing again for election to the Innermost Pack, as if to tie disgrace like a rotting puppy around the neck of the Sardhluun forever.
The Werowance hoped that this young and vigorous challenger—whose name escaped the Werowance although it was no doubt a worthy one—could slay the shame of the pack, tear those undeserved honor-teeth from a ravaged neck, or at least prevent him from taking up the banner to represent the pack he had so deeply stained with the stink of dishonor.
Either candidate could at this time withdraw, although he would of course leave his honor-teeth behind on the sacred ground of the arena's fighting pit.
This was the burden of the Werowance's song.
The two candidates bowed their heads and drank the poison in their bowls.
The election would run until one of them had drunk the antidote beneath the Werowance's box, or until both of them were dead.
War noted the manifestation of Death. She appeared to his god's eye as she often did: lightless, faceless, spider-armed, and many-fingered.
She acknowledged the manifestations of both War and Wisdom and signified, “I visualized this encounter. I will not rejoin the pact-sworn intention.”
The werewolves felt the presence of Death, although only a few ghost-sniffers could actually see her (and that dimly). A shudder ran through the audience, and they leaned forward to watch the election.
Wurnafenglu had faced election many times; he knew the taste of poison well, and it didn't frighten him. The challenger stood in a different place entirely. He looked anxiously toward the bowl of remedy and licked his lips, still bitter with poison. If he ran straight toward the bowl of remedy and drank the antidote, he would not die. But he would gain no honor and another election would be held, with him as the incumbent.
Wurnafenglu saw the uncertainty on the challenger's face and smiled a long sinister smile. He trotted around until he stood squarely between the challenger and the bowl of remedy. Then he sat right down and stared at the moon, drinking its light with his eyes, idly scratching his right ear with his right forepaw. Death was in him and he knew it. But he did not fear it.
“I love that ugly black wolf,” signified Death privately to War.
“I consider him to be a fool,” War replied. “He spent the better part of a year torturing two prisoners who had gotten the better of him. Then he walks away and lets his guards get snot-face drunk on bloom smoke, simply because of a date on a calendar. Now he must fight for his right to keep what he has, and he must do the same all year long if he wins here tonight.”
“Oh, he's a fool. No doubt of that. A clever fool. A cunning fool. A wise fool. That is my favorite kind of fool.”
Wisdom knew these signs were directed at him, but he did not acknowledge them.
The challenger was growing anxious. He tried to lock gazes with Wurnafenglu, but the black wolf would not look at him. The challenger assumed a threatening posture and snarled at Wurnafenglu. The black wolf kept looking at the moon. Now he was idly scratching his left ear. The challenger barked that he would kill—kill—kill Wurnafenglu. His blood would be the challenger's most favored drink; his rotting liver would be given to the challenger's cubs for a holiday treat; his intestines would be used for sausages and sold for copper coins in Apetown, and the challenger would give the money away in charity to monkey-faced whores.
Undaunted by these terrors, Wurnafenglu waited.
“Your plan is not progressing as you foresaw,” Wisdom signified to Death.
Death emanated a reckless joy, more intense and bitter than mere amusement.
The werewolves, patiently waiting for election developments, shuddered, thinking the warm winter night had suddenly turned chilly.
Death signified, “You are right. The torrent you predicted is sweeping away my visualization of the nearer future.”
War grumbled, “This torrent which is so constantly in your signs does not appear to me to be very exciting. One battle in a whole year! And the Sardhluun did no more raiding than they usually do, and next year they'
ll have to do less.”
The citizens in the audience began to grow restless. They wanted a more eventful election than this—something they could talk about to those who hadn't witnessed it, to argue about with those who had.
But the challenger was growing more anxious. His threatening posture had given way to a nervous dance. He capered one way, then another. He leapt back, then forward, snarling.
Wurnafenglu waited.
The challenger looked desperately at the moon, the stands, his enemy. His eyes were clouding; his vision was fading; his nervous antics were spreading the poison through his blood more rapidly. He scampered off in a long curving charge toward the remedy bowl.
Wurnafenglu leapt and struck with his full weight on the challenger's right shoulder. The challenger rolled in the dirt and tried to rise, snapping frantically with his jaws. But Wurnafenglu pinned him. He forced the challenger's head to the ground with his back feet as the challenger scrambled ineffectively to free himself. Wurnafenglu fixed his jaws at the base of the challenger's spine.
Hollow wolvish whistles of admiration echoed around the arena. Few in the audience would have staked a serious combat on a bite like that, where the backbone was strongest. There were a few skeptical yelps, and someone began a song to the effect that Wurnafenglu had made his last bad decision.
These were silenced by the crack of the challenger's spine, a crunching sound that reverberated all around the arena.
Wurnafenglu shook his opponent for a few moments, to make sure the spine was severed, and then he relaxed his jaws and let the broken challenger fall whining to the ground. He turned away and trotted calmly over to the bowl of remedy. Unhurriedly, without wasting a drop, he drank half the antidote.
Carefully, he picked up the bowl with his teeth and sidled toward the challenger, who was staring desperately at the moon, trying to knit his shattered spine together in time to continue the fight. If there had been three moons aloft and no poison in his veins, he might have managed it, but things were as they were.
Wurnafenglu held out the bowl of remedy to his fallen opponent.