by James Enge
This rarely happened in elections of the Sardhluun, and it was a disgrace to accept. But it did mean life rather than death for the defeated candidate.
The challenger weakly pushed the bowl away with his snout.
Wurnafenglu offered the bowl to the challenger again.
The challenger pushed it away again, more slowly and more reluctantly now.
Wurnafenglu offered the remedy to the challenger for a third time.
There was a moment of stillness. Then, in the sight of everyone, the challenger made a sudden movement to drink the remedy.
Wurnafenglu sidled out of reach and the challenger was foiled.
Wurnafenglu approached the sobbing challenger from the side and contemptuously poured the remedy over the challenger's genitals.
The challenger writhed about, trying to lick at the spilled remedy, but because of his broken spine he could not reach it.
Wurnafenglu smashed the bowl across the whining challenger's face and it shattered. Victorious Wurnafenglu ripped the honor-teeth from the defeated challenger's neck and fixed his jaws in the defenseless throat. He held his grip until the poison finished its work and the challenger was dead.
He tossed the corpse from him and looked toward the audience for his due.
They gave it—reluctantly at first, but then more and more enthusiastically. They howled their congratulations and applause. They ululated into the single-eyed night, saluting Wurnafenglu's victory. Everyone loves a winner, and he had proven, against their hopes and desires, that he was a winner. They wanted him on their side so that they could be winners, too.
War attempted to signify something to Death, but then took note she was no longer manifest.
“I signify this again,” he signified to Wisdom. “Death is the strangest of the Strange Gods.”
“She is lying,” Wisdom signified reflectively. “I think everything she signifies is a lie.”
“Then she's more reliable than most,” War signified tolerantly. Lies are the normal form of communication in war, and he was used to them. “Oh well, I suppose the fighting is over.” He ceased to manifest himself.
Wisdom remained manifest, watching and thinking. He knew about lies, too, and he knew that people or gods lie largely because they are frightened. He thought it was important to know why Death was afraid.
Now that the serious matter of the election was over, the lighter business of the celebration began. Wurnafenglu invited a few of his close personal friends down to the arena ground to help him kill and eat the never-wolf slave who had brought in the poison.
Chief among his guests was, of course, his old friend the Werowance. The Werowance explained, in a song where tones of grief mixed with gladness, that he had only seemed to criticize Wurnafenglu because of his official obligations, and that he had always esteemed the gnyrrand as one of the greatest citizens in the history of Wuruyaaria, and that he hoped they could continue to work together for the betterment of the pack and the city they both loved so much. Wurnafenglu replied that he understood the Werowance completely and that he hoped he would always esteem the Werowance at the Werowance's true worth.
Wurnafenglu named a few other friends and foes to join him in the feast, and then they gave chase to the woman.
She had been crouching in a shadowy edge of the arena, hoping against hope that she would be spared, or at least forgotten. When the wolves came for her, she tried to run, but there were several of them and no place for her to go. In the end, which came soon, she was cornered and she knew it.
She stood in the moonlight, her back to the arena wall, as the great silver-muzzled black wolf approached. She shook her fist at him. “Kree-laow!” she screamed in the bestial face. “Kree-laow!”
Then they took her down and killed her and ate her. Many minor guests were invited down to sample some of the meat and hobnob with the great ones, and the night was thought of as a memorable one, until the next election.
Kree-laow, in the language of the dead woman, meant “He will avenge.” The werewolves neither knew nor cared about this. At least, not then.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FUND-RAISING
On the third morning of the year, Morlock woke from a long, long dream. He stretched his crooked frame as he lay in the sun and wondered vaguely why so much of his terrible dream had involved werewolves. He opened his eyes and looked up straight into the face of a werewolf.
True, she was in the form of a woman, but he had learned to recognize the long narrow face of a werewolf in the day shape. She had a mottled skin like Hrutnefdhu, too (if he wasn't just part of the dream). And somehow, somehow inside, he just knew she was a werewolf.
He sat up and put one hand to his temple. He felt the healing wound there. The spike was gone. His Sight had returned.
“Thank you,” he said.
Her eyes dropped. She seemed embarrassed. “I did what I could,” she said eventually. “I'm not sure I got it all. You may…there still may be problems.”
He closed his eyes and tested his insight. He realized she might be right. It was hard to tell; his inward blindness had gone on so long. But: he could dream. He could live. The world was as radiant with meaning as with sunlight.
“I still thank you,” he said. “My name is Morlock Ambrosius, and my blood is yours.”
“Well,” she said, laughing, “I sopped up enough of it! I don't think I want any more. Oh, I'm sure that's the wrong thing to say. I don't know your customs. I should—it was for my Hrutnefdhu, you know. He calls you his old friend; I couldn't do less.”
“Hrutnefdhu.” Morlock closed his eyes, trying to separate memory from dream and from delusions of madness. “Yes: it was him, and Rokhlenu, and me. Us against them.”
“It still is, Hrutnefdhu says. Only there are more of us. And more of them, too, I'm afraid. I am Liudhleeo, Hrutnefdhu's mate.” She looked narrowly at him as if expecting him to recognize the name.
He had heard it, but didn't at first remember where. Then he did. He considered what to say. He neither wished to avoid the issue of the rape, nor make it the most important thing about her. To him, she was still the healer who had saved him from death and madness. But she was also his fellow prisoner—or fellow ex-prisoner, now. “How did you escape?” he asked.
It was not what she had been expecting him to say, clearly. Her eager-to-be-angered expression twisted into simple surprise, and then a kind of relief. “Oh? Oh, that. They—they let me go. Threw me out, really. I think they thought I was dying. I was—well, the next day, I was in pretty bad shape.”
“I hated them for what they did to you.”
She was embarrassed again, on the verge of anger. “I don't hate them. I don't hate them. But I didn't shed any tears when I heard what happened to them; you can bet on that.”
“Eh.”
She put her long clever hands over her mottled face and laughed. “They said you'd say that. They said you'd say that, but I didn't believe them.”
“Eh.”
“Oh, don't overdo it. It will take the magic away. You'll need something to eat, I expect.”
“Yes.” Morlock thought about the last time he hadn't been hungry, and he couldn't remember it. “Yes. I could eat anything in the world. Except meat,” he added hastily, remembering a gray ear afloat in soupy porridge.
“Oh, yes: Hrutnefdhu mentioned your aversion. Don't worry. It's almost impossible to acquire anything as exotic and expensive as human flesh in the outlier pack.”
“All the same. If you don't mind.”
“I don't mind. Let me get you settled with breakfast, and I'll go off to find my Hrutnefdhu.”
Breakfast was flatbread, cheese, and a warm murky sort of tea. Morlock found it wonderful, not least because nothing in it seemed to be a by-product of a human slaughterhouse.
Afterward, putting on the loose but well-made gray clothes that had been left for him, he stood at each one of the little den's many windows and stared out at the world.
To the
north, Wuruyaaria towered over: mesa rising over mesa like great steps up the side of a mountain. He watched the tiny silhouettes of the baskets run up and down the funicular and tried to reason how they might work. He looked at the moon-clock set into the dark volcano, its metal gleaming gold in the sun. If Ulugarriu had made these things, he must meet Ulugarriu.
Hrutnefdhu showed up shortly thereafter.
“Good to see you better,” the pale werewolf said, shamefaced for some reason.
Morlock thanked him. “And you are well?” he asked.
“Oh, the moon took care of that. As much as it could,” he added rather mysteriously. “Let's go,” he added hastily. “Rokhlenu wants to see you.”
Morlock nodded and they left together. Hrutnefdhu set a very elaborate lock on the door, and they made their way down the narrow stairs. In the light from the street door, Morlock saw notices on the wall in two languages. One was a few starlike images that might have been ideograms; the other was longer and looked like it might be a phonetic script. Moonspeech and Sunspeech, or so he guessed.
“What do they say?” he asked Hrutnefdhu.
The pale mottled werewolf blushed and said, “'Tenants must bury their own dead. No smoking bloom on the stairways.'”
“Bloom is the smoke the guards were drunk on the other night?” Morlock asked.
“Yes,” Hrutnefdhu said. “Many smoke it to forget their troubles, and some seem to have more trouble than others. Look, there are no good neighborhoods in the outlier pack, but this is the very worst. You need to know that.”
Morlock looked up and down the narrow boarded way that served as a street. It stopped not too far east of the towering lair; beyond it was a murky stretch of swamp water and beyond that a rising slope choked with thickets and the suggestion of a cave entrance or two.
“It seems ideal to me,” said Morlock, as he followed Hrutnefdhu to the other side of the little settlement.
Rokhlenu was deep in conference with Olleiulu when he looked up and saw Morlock standing nearby, clear-eyed and relatively sane-looking. He jumped up and they grabbed each other's shoulders.
“How's freedom?” Rokhlenu asked.
“Good,” Morlock said. “You're back in politics, I hear.”
“I may be,” Rokhlenu said, the anxieties of his position pressing down on him. “Have they fed you? Are you hungry?”
“They have fed me,” Morlock said, “but I'm still hungry. I take it rations are scarce, though.”
“Not for Khretvarrgliu they krecking are not!” barked Olleiulu, and the werewolves nearby all started shouting about Khretvarrgliu and food and how maybe things would be better now.
“Let's go eat, then,” said Rokhlenu. “We can talk over breakfast.”
Rokhlenu and Olleiulu walked on either side of Morlock to the other side of the great ramshackle building. Hrutnefdhu insisted on walking behind, and no one but Morlock seemed to think that odd. Half of the building served as a dormitory without beds; the other half served as a refectory without benches or tables. Morlock got a bowl of, unfortunately, porridge. At least it seemed to have no animal products in it other than butter and a little honey.
The big red werewolf with the golden hair had preceded them into the refectory, and when he saw Morlock he shouted incoherently and gestured and in general made a fuss until Morlock sat down by him. There was no one else sitting there, so Morlock dropped down and sat on the empty floor. The other werewolves did the same, although at a greater distance from the red werewolf.
The conveniences of the refectory didn't run to spoons, so Morlock ate with his fingers like the others.
“We are short of money, I take it,” he said, between slurps.
In a confusing amount of detail, Rokhlenu, supplemented by Olleiulu and Hrutnefdhu, explained to Morlock just how short of money they were. The outlier pack in general was not wealthy, barely having enough food to sustain themselves, and the addition of nearly the entire prison population had made matters worse. Money was scarce; food was expensive; lodging was almost impossible.
The building they were sitting in and the food they were eating were gifts from someone named Wuinlendhono. Olleiulu kept referring to them as “love-gifts” and looking slyly at Rokhlenu. Rokhlenu would blush and talk about something else in a blustering voice. Morlock didn't want to embarrass his friend, but it seemed to be the central issue, so he finally asked.
“Wuinlendhono is the First Wolf of the outlier pack,” Rokhlenu explained. “For the time being, at any rate.”
“Oh,” said Morlock. He thought for a moment or two. “What's stopping her from keeping the job?” he asked. “If she wants it.”
“Well, she's a female.”
“Yes?” -o was the feminine ending for names in Moonspeech and Sunspeech.
“We don't generally have females running our packs,” Hrutnefdhu explained to him, when the other males did not seem to realize that more explanation was needed.
“Oh. Then we're talking an…an arranged mating, if that's the right term,” Morlock said.
“Yes, exactly,” Rokhlenu said hastily. “That's what it is. A political arrangement, that's all. It will give us a place in the outlier pack. But I have to do my own arranging, my family still being on Aruukaiaduun. And I have no portion.”
Morlock mulled this over as he went to get a fingerful of porridge. To his surprise, he found his bowl was empty. He looked up at the werewolves. Most were expressionless. The red werewolf was shamefaced and his right hand was full of porridge. His terrified eyes dropped rather than meet Morlock's.
Theft was a serious crime where Morlock was raised, in some cases more serious than murder, but the red werewolf was obviously not juggling with both hands. Morlock shrugged and turned back to the others.
“He must have grabbed it straight out of my bowl,” Morlock said. “Remarkable.”
“The skill of long practice,” Hrutnefdhu remarked. “Several of his cellmates died of hunger. I don't think he can help it. That's why we call him Hlupnafenglu.” The name meant Steals-your-food.
“Eh.” Morlock didn't want to talk about it, but instead listened as Rokhlenu explained the local mating customs. Courting gifts were common from females to males, but males were supposed to bring a certain amount of property to a marriage. If Rokhlenu and Wuinlendhono married, her position would be secure and Rokhlenu's followers (most of the irredeemables and thugs who had fought their way out of prison with them) would have a place in the outliers.
“So we need money,” Morlock said. “What kind of money? Cash? Things? Land?”
“Whatever we can get,” Rokhlenu said. Olleiulu proposed a plan to work as robbers on the roads around the never-wolf cities in the south. In a year or two, they could return with a portion for Rokhlenu and enough coin to support the irredeemables for a while—if that was what they all wanted, to join the outliers.
As the three werewolves discussed this plan's merits and defects, Morlock thought about one thing and another. Presently he felt the weight of the bowl on his knee grow greater. He looked down to see most of his porridge had been returned. He looked up to see Hlupnafenglu looking at him shamefacedly.
“Take it,” Morlock said, holding out the bowl. “No, take it,” he added, when the red werewolf tried to push it away. “You're bigger than I am. You need the food more than I do. I've already eaten today. Take the food.”
He persisted until the red werewolf grabbed the bowl and glumly started scooping up the contents.
The other werewolves displayed varying degrees of bemusement. “It's a new age of miracles,” Hrutnefdhu muttered. “Hlupnafenglu giving back food.…”
Rokhlenu was talking about joining some council of advisors with his intended bride, but Morlock declined to join him. “I'll go round up some money,” he said. The other werewolves looked at him skeptically, and Rokhlenu asked if there was anything he needed.
“Two things,” Morlock said. “First, a guide who can take me to the nearest market or market
s.”
“That's me,” said Hrutnefdhu eagerly.
“Second, if it's not too much trouble, my sword.”
“Your sword,” Rokhlenu said blankly. “The one with the black-and-white blade? The one you called to you in the New Year's fight? The one you slew the blue dragon with in the mountains?”
“Yes, it was not with me when I woke up.”
“Those worthless barking ball-less brachs,” whispered Olleiulu. “Those ape-toed, bald-faced, quivering slugs. They have stolen the sword of Khretvarrgliu.”
“Well, many of them were in prison for theft, you know,” Hrutnefdhu said, almost apologetically.
“I will roast them alive on silver spikes over a fire of wolfbane,” Olleiulu said. “I will make them beg for the mercy of death and I will deny it them. I will kick their sorry ugly up-for-sale asses. I will get your sword back, Khretvarrgliu.” He leapt to his feet and set off at a furious run.
“Thank you,” Morlock said mildly to his back. He pounded Rokhlenu on the shoulder and went off to the marketplace with Hrutnefdhu. Hlupnafenglu followed them, a vague look on his face, the bowl still in his hand.
Business was slow in the marketplace; Morlock saw many vacant spaces among the vendors. The busiest corner stood between two whorehouses. A sausage seller and portrait maker had commandeered the space and were doing a fair business with those passing by toward one or the other door.
“Stay here,” Morlock said to Hrutnefdhu and Hlupnafenglu.
Morlock walked up to the sausage seller and said, “Have you got live coals there?”
“I've got fresh sausages,” the seller said, ready to be offended. “Each one contains a certain proportion of real meat!”
“I don't care about that,” Morlock said. “But you've got them on a warming grill, and there's fire under the grill.”
“Are you hinting that something might happen to my sausage cart?” the seller said suspiciously. “I pay protection to First Wolf of the outliers himself! You'll answer to him if you bother me! And you're bothering me!”