by James Enge
Morlock sat down beside the pale werewolf on the wooden street. “I spoke badly, it's true. Friendship is not bought and sold. We call it ‘blood' in my people—blood chosen-not-given. And blood has no price.”
Hrutnefdhu wondered why he talked of money at all, then, and why he didn't keep his stupid flat ape-face shut, then; that was what Hrutnefdhu wanted to know. (His barking was still a little hysterical.)
Morlock waved his hands. “Things cost money. Don't you pay money for shelter, for food, for water—for everything but air, here? I have gold. I only wish to share. Why should I have money, and you not. Eh?”
The pale werewolf settled down. He sat beside Morlock and he said that things were fine just now, and that when money was needed they would treat Morlock's money as their own. Would that suit him? Could they stop talking about this ugly subject now?
Morlock nodded, and they sat there in silence for a time as Hrutnefdhu calmed down.
Hrutnefdhu finally sang that his blood was a little wild; he had not slept in the afternoon, as maybe he should have done. His afternoon had been frustrating beyond that. He asked Morlock not to think badly of him.
“Shut your maw,” said Morlock agreeably, and was about to get up when Hrutnefdhu held out a paw, and Morlock sat back and waited.
Hrutnefdhu asked if Morlock had thought they would die, back in the tunnel leading out of the Vargulleion.
“I wasn't thinking very clearly then,” Morlock said, remembering the night as if it were years or centuries ago. “I did expect us to be killed before we escaped.”
Hrutnefdhu admitted that he had planned to ditch Morlock and Rokhlenu during the escape. The last thing he expected was to find himself fighting in the tunnel.
Morlock opened his hands and waited. There was obviously something Hrutnefdhu wanted to tell him.
The pale werewolf sang that he had meant to run away, but there was never a moment when the way was clear. When he found himself enmeshed in the tunnel, he thought they might fight their way through. Then, as time fled before them and the night wore away, he was no longer sure. When he was wounded, so badly wounded, he was sure he would die: there was no moonlight in the tunnel to heal him, or even maintain his life. He had felt himself dying, but he had gone on fighting anyway. It was not the song he would have sung of his life, but that was where it had led him, and he found a kind of contentment in knowing exactly how the rest of his life would pass. Then the enemy line broke, and many trampled Hrutnefdhu in their eagerness to escape, and his limbs were broken. He could see life ahead of him, but knew he would never reach it. But others had, and that was enough. As he was closing his eyes, he felt Khretvarrgliu's grip on his neck, dragging him toward life and light. Coming out of the tunnel, killing the sureness of his death, was like a second birth, a new life.
Morlock didn't know what to say. He patted the pale werewolf awkwardly on the shoulder.
Hrutnefdhu demanded to know why he had done it. Hrutnefdhu was just a plepnup, a trustee who had betrayed his trust, a citizen of no particular bite in prison or anywhere. Why had Khretvarrgliu killed his death, dragged him from death to life?
“Eh,” said Morlock reluctantly, wishing he had a better answer to such an obviously important question, “I never asked myself why. It was us against them. You were—you are—one of us, not one of them. That's all.”
The pale mottled wolf looked at him with pale moonlit eyes and sang no more of the matter.
They ascended the narrow dark stairs, littered with werewolves drinking smoke from fuming bowls, in defiance of the notice by the door. Liudhleeo was not in the apartment when they arrived. Hrutnefdhu suggested that Morlock wait there while he went and saw about the early night meal.
Morlock didn't argue; the long day had worn him ragged. He lay down for a moment on the rug where he had awoken that morning, and a moment later he was asleep.
It was still night when he awoke again: Liudhleeo was entering the apartment. She still wore her day shape. He rolled to his feet, but she carolled, “Oh, be still you silly ape. You must be half dead. I heard about some of the things you were up to today.”
He sat back down on the rug and nearly lay back down, but restrained himself.
“How are you?” she asked, sitting beside him on the rug. “That's a technical question; remember that I'm your healer.”
“Eh.”
“Oh, blood-drinking, giggling, hairy ghosts. Is that all you have to say? Off with your clothes, then; I'll have to find out for myself.”
Morlock nearly struck her hands away: the indignity of it reminded him a little of the prison. But she was his healer and Hrutnefdhu's mate. He took his clothes off, with her assistance.
She looked him over briefly, and then spent a good deal more time smelling him.
“How are you, really?” she said. “How is your Sight? You haven't fully recovered, have you? Don't spare my feelings; I want to know what's happening.”
“My Sight is much impaired,” he admitted reluctantly. “I had to go into full withdrawal simply to release some phlogiston from some wood this afternoon.”
“I wish I knew what that meant. No, don't bother explaining just yet. I take it that this is something that you used to do easily, and now is markedly more difficult.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me something, and this too is a technical question, so be absolutely honest and as specific as you can. Is this terseness, this reluctance to part with a syllable more than you absolutely must—is it a relatively new feature of your psyche and behavior? Is it something that developed over the last year when the spike was in your skull?”
“No.”
“Ghost. Well at least you're no crazier than you used to be. Am I right?”
“As far as I can tell. Of course…”
“If you mean, a crazy person wouldn't know he was crazy, I'm afraid that's not true. Many crazy people are dreadfully aware of their decaying faculties, at least intermittently, and so did you seem to be before I pulled that spike out. So we'll call the operation at least a partial success. Well, you still appear very undernourished, and I think that magical healing goo has some sort of unpleasant aftereffect, but apart from that you seem to be in fairly good shape for a rather battered never-wolf of—how many years?”
“I don't keep count anymore. Between four and five hundred.”
“Oh, don't tell me, then. But this is a very poor occasion to practice your wit at my expense. I'm your healer, for ghost's sake. Is there anything else? There is, isn't there? Tell me.”
“I'm dropping a lot of things with my left hand,” he admitted.
“Doesn't everybody? Unless you're left-handed.” She had to explain to him what handedness was, and then he had to explain to her that he was ambidextrous, or had been.
“Hm,” she said at last, clearly concerned. “Well, you're still recovering. Let's not worry about it.”
Morlock was worried about it, but what happened next nearly drove it from his mind. Liudhleeo leaned forward and inhaled his scent deeply in a gesture that did not seem to be exactly professional.
“You smell fairly clean,” she said, “in a watery, brackeny way. But do you want me to wash you?”
“Wash me? With your tongue?”
“You are such a never-wolf. Yes, dear Morlock or Khretvarrgliu or whatever your name is, with my tongue. We don't have tubs and sponges like the Apetown bathhouses. What an idea! Anyway, it wouldn't be the first time. Who do you think cleaned you after your escape from prison? A nasty job, some would have found it, but I have to admit I find something about your scent rather exciting. And your blood is utterly delicious. I have a feeling that it might be some sort of poison, and I'm starting to think maybe that's how I want to die—”
He looked sideways at her and began to put on his clothes.
She grabbed his arm with her hand. “Listen, why bother? You'll only have to take them off again before we couple.”
“I'm not going to couple you. If that m
eans what I think it means.”
“Couple with me, silly. And of course it means what you think it means. And of course you are going to couple with me, old what's-your-name. I know the smell of a male who's ready to have sex, and I'm ready to have sex with you, so what more is there to talk about? Unless talking is an important part of it, for you? I don't know how never-wolves do it. Though I'm aching to find out.”
“No.”
“You can't be serious.”
“I'm serious.”
“Why not? Males mystify me, really. Once you think you have them figured out, they go and—Listen, I'm your healer. This is a matter of your well-being. When was the last time you coupled with anybody? And I'm not talking about your apish palms.”
“Forget it. Hrutnefdhu is my friend.”
“Wonderful. He needs more of them. Especially males with a lot of bite, like you. But what has that got to do with it?”
“You are Hrutnefdhu's mate.”
“Yes, of course. But Hrutnefdhu has been castrated, Morlock.” She had to explain herself here, as she used the technical term, not the slur plepnup.“He is lovely, far lovelier than you or any other male I've ever known. I love him dearly, as I will never love you. But coupling is one thing we cannot do, and he knows that I need it. He doesn't begrudge me satisfying my needs. So let's say no more about it.”
Morlock didn't doubt that she thought she was telling the truth, but he did doubt that Hrutnefdhu was as complaisant as she said: he knew something of the humble werewolf's prickly pride. In any case, Morlock had his own notions of loyalty. “No,” he said, and finished putting on his clothes.
She watched him with her mouth slightly open, finally convinced he meant what he said. She threw up her hands and said, “And after I went to the trouble of repressing the change to my night shape! Oh, well: live and learn. Though I must say, you never-wolves are a cold-blooded lot.”
“No doubt.”
“Don't be sullen, now. I don't fully understand you, Morlock, but I know that you're acting out of friendship to my sweet Hrutnefdhu, and nothing could make you dearer to me. Really, I mean that. Oh, ghosts, what are we going to do until midnight?”
“Midnight?”
“I met Hrutnefdhu as I came home and told him I was going to screw you and asked him not to come home until midnight. He'll bring some supper with him. Oh, well, you had better get some sleep. I'm going to stand in the moonlight and take my night shape, and then perhaps wash myself. If that won't offend your apish sensibilities.”
“Don't be sullen.”
“Well-bitten. Well-bitten. All right, I won't be sullen. Let's neither of us be.”
Morlock's weariness dragged him back into sleep not long after she underwent the change. She woke him at midnight when supper arrived—but Hrutnefdhu did not arrive with it; he had sent it by a messenger from First Wolf's lair. There had been some kind of fight in the audience chamber that evening, and Rokhlenu had called all the irredeemables to stand guard.
The lair-tower of the outlier pack's First Wolf was less rickety than some. Its spacious first floor was mostly given to an audience chamber. At one end of the chamber there was a dais with a steep couch covered in bearskin. There, just after sunset, she lay in the moonlight falling from a nearby window: a small dark-furred she-wolf displaying the stillness and patience of a hunter. The only parts of her body that moved were her glittering eyes, which watched the three emissaries from the Sardhluun Pack as they paced and pranced and boasted before her.
The lead emissary, whose neck jangled with ropes of honor-teeth, had his forefeet on the lowest step of the First Wolf's dais. He was lifting his feet to climb further up, and his seconds were following him. Wuinlendhono's followers stood abashed in the presence of emissaries from a true treaty pack, and none of them sang a word or made a move to defend their First Wolf from disrespect. Even the wolves who wore the gold tooth as her bodyguards were standing with their heads down. Their chief, a reddish frizz-faced citizen named Yaniunulu, was emitting a funk so intense the whole room reeked of it. Wuinlendhono knew that if she had to act to defend her own honor she would act alone.
Rokhlenu came into the audience chamber, a great gray werewolf with eyes as blue as Trumpeter at first rising. He gazed about in astonishment at the insolence of the emissaries, the timidity of the outliers. He dashed across the open floor and leapt onto the dais steps, wheeling about to snarl in the face of the leading emissary.
The emissary knew him, though the reverse was not true. The emissary barked that he would kill-kill-kill Rokhlenu and drag his disembowelled corpse back to the Werowance and Wurnafenglu for the prize. He reared up on his back feet and howled his anger.
Wuinlendhono shot past Rokhlenu's shoulder like a black lightning bolt. She struck the lead emissary in the chest and he tumbled backward on the dais. While he was disoriented by his fall, her shining teeth fastened on his throat.
The other emissaries started forward to aid their leader, but Rokhlenu charged, snarling, to warn them off. They backed slowly away. He wore only one honor-tooth, but it was a dragon's tooth. They had not been present in the Vargulleion on the dreadful New Year's Night, but they had heard about it…from the survivors.
There was a silence in which they all heard the lead emissary's neck break.
Wuinlendhono dragged the corpse over to the nearest patch of moonlight and waited for the werewolf to revive. When he began to move his head feebly, she tore with her jaws at the cords around his neck and sent the honor-teeth skittering across the floor of the audience chamber.
To the reviving werewolf she sang sweetly that he should be sure to tell the Werowance, be sure to tell Wurnafenglu, be sure to tell his mate and cubs how he had lost his honor-teeth—that he had lost them to a female.
Desperately, the disgraced wolf tried to grab at a few of the lost teeth with his mouth, but she headed him off, snarling, and he retreated back beside his peers, his head still hanging at an odd angle.
The other two emissaries sang despondently that this was a sad way to treat them and that the Werowance would be angry.
Shoulder to shoulder now, Wuinlendhono and Rokhlenu faced the three emissaries down, forcing them backward, barking that they should go! go! go! while they had one honor-tooth or testicle among them.
Olleiulu appeared at the entrance of the chamber with an unruly pack of irredeemables at his heels, mostly in their night shapes. They parted to let the emissaries through, and barked derisively, from human and lupine throats alike, as the three Sardhluun werewolves suddenly turned tail and fled into the night.
Wuinlendhono held her aggressive stance until the emissaries had vanished and the volley of insults pursuing them had died down. Then she turned and touched noses with Rokhlenu. Her breath was hot on his face, and he inhaled it like perfume.
She whispered her thanks, sang gently that five was a very lucky number indeed, and asked if he was willing to follow her lead on something.
Every nerve in Rokhlenu's body was ringing like a bronze bell, and he breathed back that he was willing to follow her anywhere. What he really meant was that he was willing to follow her into a nearby room and couple like weasels, and her sinister grin suggested that she understood this.
Nonetheless, she took his answer and bounded back up to First Wolf's couch and lay there.
She sang a song of honor to Rokhlenu and his irredeemables, who had stood forth to defend her and the honor of the outlier pack from the insolence of the flea-bitten Sardhluun guard dogs. A lucky ghost had guided her choice of intended, as he had proven this night. Then she pointedly directed Yaniunulu, the chief of her bodyguard, to sweep up the defeated emissary's honor-teeth and present them as a love-gift to her intended, Rokhlenu, glorious singer and hero.
His tail hanging a little low, the reddish wolf moved to obey.
Olleiulu stood forth and said, “If you'll excuse me, Wuinlendhono, high and fierce, I can do that. I'm just a semiwolf; it's no problem for me.”
&n
bsp; Wuinlendhono crooned that Olleiulu was generous and brave, a warrior whatever shape he happened to wear, and that the work was beneath him; she would let Yaniunulu do it, and perhaps some other humble services around the lair. Meanwhile, Olleiulu had more important work to perform, the labor of a citizen and a fighter.
Stoically, Yaniunulu set about sweeping up the scattered honor-teeth with his tail.
Wuinlendhono asked Olleiulu if her intended had gathered together the agreed-upon settlement in gold.
Olleiulu's eyes crossed a little at this, and he looked anxiously at Rokhlenu for a sign. Rokhlenu nodded, and Olleiulu turned back toward First Wolf and said, “Yes, High Huntress and leader, he has.”
Wuinlendhono sang that he could keep it, that she had changed her mind.
Stunned silence greeted this remark, followed by whispers and whistles of wonder. And there was an undercurrent of snarling anger from the irredeemables. They had not come here to see their chief dishonored.
Not about the marriage, Wuinlendhono sang, when the surprise had begun to subside. On that she was more settled than ever. No, for a marriage settlement, she desired no gold, not she, who was rich enough that her very household servants and maids wore gold teeth. No, she needed no gold. It was blood that she wanted, blood and vengeance on the mangy sheepdogs of the Sardhluun Pack.
Dizzy with the sense that he was bounding along the edge of a crumbling cliff, Rokhlenu cried that the gift was too easy, that they had torn the Sardhluun Pack when they had little to fight with but the chains and stones of the hated Vargulleion.
Wuinlendhono sang back that she knew how brave he and his relentless heroes were, and that any deed requiring no more than bravery and cunning would be a trivial favor to ask of them, but that nonetheless she did want this one thing. The Sardhluun kept another prison for Wuruyaaria: the Khuwuleion, the Stone Lair, where females lay in vile durance. If Rokhlenu and his irredeemables would break the gates of the Khuwuleion and free the prisoners therein, she would life-mate with Rokhlenu the same night, may the ghosts bind her to it.