The Wolf Age

by James Enge

  "I'm in the middle of something," Morlock said, adjusting the height of the airship again and cranking the forward speed to maximum. "Send me a message, if you want to arrange a meeting in person. I will not deal with a simulacrum."

  "And I'm supposed to let you within sword's reach of me, so you can split me like beef liver with Tyrfing? Not on your flat greasy ape-nose. We'll talk on my terms, because what I have to say you need to hear."

  Morlock grabbed the steersman simulacrum by its elbow and stepped off the platform, dragging the other with him. The simulacrum hit the floor first, since Morlock was held up by the levity of his wings. When he reached the floor, he drew his sword and slashed a hole in the fabric.

  "You're making a mistake," the steersman simulacrum repeated in a resigned voice.

  Morlock stuffed him through the hole and out into the night. He heard the body strike the gondola on its way to earth.

  Satisfied, he sheathed the sword and flew back up to the moonstone platform.

  The werewolf crew would come for him presently, but he had a plan to deal with them. If his plan failed he would have to improvise, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that. The crew would remember what had happened to the other airship when the crew attacked, and that would slow them down some. It gave him time, perhaps enough ...

  In the view-board, the cratered peak of Dhaarnaiarnon lay dead center and growing.

  The dark bird who was Mercy signified, "The knowledge that Ulugarriu operates through simulacra has disrupted my visualizations."

  The swordlike shadow indicated agreement with Mercy.

  The indistinct dark cloud that was Death signified nothing.

  "My manifested senses perceived the simulacrum as if it were alive," Mercy persisted.

  War agreed.

  The indistinct dark cloud that was Death signified nothing.

  "If there are multiple entities in or around the city who are, in fact, extensions of Ulugarriu," Mercy persisted, "there is a pattern to events that we do not grasp. It will clash with patterns we do grasp, and the results are beyond prediction."

  "There is no pattern to events," Death signified. "Or: only one."

  "The inevitability of death?"

  "Yes."

  War indicated boredom with this oft-repeated pattern of symbology.

  "You lesser gods," Death replied, "have the luxury of boredom, change, variety. You hold sway in a mortal's life for an hour, a day, a year, some stretch of time. Then they relinquish you, and you them. But I impinge on a mortal's life once, when they become me and I become them. And then they are not, forever. And I go on, forever."

  "Or they escape to a place where we can no longer torture them," signified Mercy, "forever. That's my hope."

  "Hope," repeated Death, and signified amusement. She ceased to be manifest.

  "Wisdom thinks she is frightened," signified Mercy. She would have preferred to discuss this with Wisdom himself, but her visualizations were growing quite tangled and she could not envision a time/space locus in which they would both be manifest.

  War signified that boasting often went hand in hand with fear. Both were part of his sphere, so he was well acquainted with them.

  "Why did you accept apotheosis, War?" Mercy asked. "I wanted to do good, and be a part of the good that people do. Maybe I have done some of that. But it has made me more and more aware of the power of evil. Why did you become a god?"

  War signified that his answer would play out in events.

  The airship was now closing on the peak of Dhaarnaiarnon. Morlock kept a close eye on the view-board. He dropped the level of flight lower, and then still lower. For his purpose, too low was better than not low enough.

  The airship shuddered with impact. There was a tearing, grinding sound from below, and forward movement stopped. Morlock braced the wheel with his body to keep the ship on course. Abruptly, the ship was flying free again.

  Morlock spun the wheel to aim the ship toward the outlier settlement and cranked down the intensity of the impulse light, diminishing the craft's speed. Then he risked jumping down to the chamber floor and peering through the rift.

  He was passing over the smoke lights of Wuruyaaria, and could see clearly that the gondola was gone. A few wooden fragments swung from stray cables, but he seemed to have no passengers. He flew back up to the moonstone platform and steered for his cave, beyond the shoulder of Wuruyaaria.

  "I don't understand," Mercy said then. "This is why you became a god?"

  War signified that he didn't understand how she could not understand. Two men had pitted their lives against a greater, better-armed force to defend those they loved. They had risked much and lost much. Their skill and daring had won a great victory.

  "One man, really," Mercy said.

  War disagreed. If it were not for Rokhlenu, Morlock would have slept through the attack in a drunken stupor. He displayed the visualization to her.

  Mercy was forced to acknowledge this truth. "But many died for that victory," she pointed out.

  War observed that more would have died if the outlier settlement had burned to the ground. Mercy for the airship crews was death for the outliers.

  "I know," Mercy replied. It was the sort of paradox which made her the weakest of the Strange Gods and War one of the strongest.

  War ceased to manifest himself. Mercy, too, departed for another spacetime locus.

  Morlock's heart felt relief at the absence of Strange Gods, although he had not been aware of their presence. He dropped the height of the airship almost to ground level and reduced the impulse light until the airship slowed almost to a walking speed. He drifted past the entrance to his cave to the silver-laden waste fields over the hill's shoulder. He set the airship down there, diminishing the intensity of the lens-foci and completely closing the irises.

  The fabric skin of the ship sagged from its skeletal framework. Morlock hauled the barrel containing the moonstone off its disk and threw it down to the ground. He jumped down after it and rolled it downslope until he reached the curtain of fabric at the chamber wall. He slashed through it with the ease of practice, though by now he was very weary, and trundled the moonstone barrel through the opening into the warm humid night air, dragging it all the way back to his cave. There it was as safe as he could make it.

  Hlupnafenglu and Hrutnefdhu were not in his cave, which he found disappointing, but also something of a relief. He bent over to pick up the bowl of wine he had set down on the cave floor before he had left. He sat down then, wearily but carefully, so that he would not spill the wine. Then he drank the wine.

  lupnafenglu and Hrutnefdhu, after Morlock flew off, ran down and took the boat over to the settlement. They ran side by side, without any need to talk, to the northeastern edge of the settlement that was under attack by the airships.

  But by the time they had gotten there the attack had ceased. The ships were still hovering overhead, but they had retreated higher in the sky, and they were firing arrows at some aerial target, or targets.

  Wuinlendhono was directing the firefighting efforts. Since the slime on the Neyuwuleiuun arrows could not be extinguished once it was set afire, they had to isolate every patch of fire through demolition. It was exacting and difficult work requiring many hands; if the Sardhluun had attacked via boats while they were busy with fires, they would have been in a bad way. But they were left alone to carry out the work, and they were winning.

  The First Wolf looked up at the approach of the pale werewolf and the red one and said, "What are they doing? What, on your ugly jailbird ghosts, are they doing?"

  "They flew away, High Huntress," said Hlupnafenglu simply.

  "There wasn't much time to talk," Hrutnefdhu added.

  "Something falling from an airship," called a sentry in a watchtower. "Not an arrow. Not a fighter."

  "Looks like a bird," sang out another. "It's gliding. No, it's falling. Yes, it's gliding."

  "Mark where it lands," called Wuinlendhono. "It'll be one or the oth
er of them," she remarked to the werewolves standing beside her.

  "Morlock, I expect," Hrutnefdhu said. "He was drunk, I fear."

  Hlupnafenglu looked at him and shrugged. Others could say what they wanted; he would put his money on Khretvarrgliu in any contest, drunk or sober.

  "It's down," called the sentry.

  "Come here," called Wuinlendhono back.

  One of the airships had veered wildly away from the other. The other followed. They were headed south, into the teeth of the wind.

  The sentry was standing there, a semiwolf named Rululawianu whose mostly human form was covered with bristling yellowish hair. "I saw the place it landed, High Huntress."

  "Then you will guide me there," said Wuinlendhono.

  "High Huntress, please think again," said Hrutnefdhu, startled from some distant train of thought by her remark. "There may be enemy fighters in the swamp."

  "Then it will be your privilege to die defending me," the First Wolf replied coolly. "Yours too, Big Red."

  Hlupnafenglu nodded.

  They went to the northern gate, found a fair-sized boat, and rowed away into the great black swamp.

  "What's happening now?" the First Wolf asked.

  Hlupnafenglu wasn't sure what she meant, and then realized she was looking up at the sky.

  One of the airships was headed directly for the other.

  "I think he's going to ram it," Hrutnefdhu said grimly.

  "He?" asked Wuinlendhono.

  "It has to be Morlock or Rokhlenu, doesn't it?"

  "Khretvarrgliu," voted Hlupnafenglu. "It's something he would do."

  "I can't tell if I want you to be right or wrong," Wuinlendhono replied.

  The red werewolf thought he knew what she meant. If her husband was up there, he was in deadly danger, taking terrible risks. If he were not, he had crash-landed in the swamp.

  They saw him from a good distance away, floating on his wings in the murky water. They rowed to him and hauled him into the boat.

  "This is one of the wingsets that Morlock made," Hrutnefdhu said, after a moment of dreadful silence. "But I can't tell who this is. I can't tell what this is."

  Wuinlendhono inhaled deeply, once, twice, again. "He stinks of the mire, and of evil magic," she said then, "but this is Rokhlenu."

  "Angry ghosts," whispered Hrutnefdhu. "What have they done to him?"

  Wuinlendhono put both her hands on Rokhlenu's distorted chest and said with a frosty calm that Hlupnafenglu found himself admiring, "He's still alive. Hrutnefdhu, are there still empty dens in that death trap you rent on the east side?"

  "Yes."

  "Take Rokhlenu there. Use the boat: row all the way around town. Then stay there with him. And you: Rululawianu," she said, addressing the yellow semiwolf. "You go with them. I want no one to hear of this. Speak to no one of the gnyrrand's ... illness."

  "Yes, High Huntress."

  By then, the two airships were directly overhead, the one in flight from the other.

  "I hope he kills them," Wuinlendhono said, in the same cold tonealthough Hlupnafenglu now realized it was not calm at all. "I hope he kills every one of them. Slowly and terribly. If he does, I'll buy him enough wine to stay drunk every day of his life, even if he lives to be a hundred."

  "He'll enjoy that, High Huntress," said Hrutnefdhu soothingly.

  Hlupnafenglu doubted that. He didn't think that Morlock actually enjoyed drinking, and had often wondered why he did it. Also, he was pretty sure that Morlock was more than a hundred years old already. But since he, too, hoped that Khretvarrgliu would kill all their enemies and avenge the harm done to their gnyrrand, he decided to say nothing that would sound like disagreement.

  They left the First Wolf on the plank road below the North Gate and settled in for the long row around town.

  The next day, Hlupnafenglu went with the First Wolf to ask Morlock for help. Rokhlenu had awakened at some point, but either he could not speak or he would not. The First Wolf received a whispered report to this effect at the door of the den, without entering, and then she told Hlupnafenglu to follow her.

  The glass eye of the wickerwork boat recognized them, of course, allowing them to board. Hlupnafenglu handled the oars on the way across the water; the First Wolf seemed lost in thought.

  Morlock had been drunk, Hlupnafenglu guessed, from the stale winy reek of the cave, but he was not now. He was lying on the cave floor next to an odd object like a black barrel. On the other side lay his sword-his real sword, Tyrfing. The black-and-white blade was alive with bitter life, and a faint red light was showing through the never-wolf's closed eyelids.

  "He's working," Hlupnafenglu said decisively to the bemused First Wolf, who had never seen Morlock in this state. "No one can disturb him, in this state. We might as well wait. Do you want to talk to the flames? They say funny things sometimes. Or we could play cards."

  Wuinlendhono looked at him with dark-ringed dark eyes and said quietly, "No, thank you. I'll just sit here. If you're sure we can't wake him."

  "We can't," Hlupnafenglu confirmed, "because he's not asleep. Working isn't sleeping, though they look the same sometimes."

  "I knew an old man once who used to say the same," Wuinlendhono remarked, seating herself gracefully on the cave floor. "I never found out whether he was telling the truth or not."

  "Did you kill him?" Hlupnafenglu said, sitting opposite her.

  The First Wolf froze, then looked carefully at him. "Yes. How did you know?"

  "There is a sound in your voice. I hear it in my own when I talk about the big female who ran the soup hut. I'm pretty sure I killed her, or tried to. She hurt me sometimes, when no one else was around. Did the old man hurt you?"

  "No more than some others, perhaps. But he was weaker than they, and paid for their sins. Never be weak, Hlupnafenglu; you may end up paying someone else's debt."

  "I'll remember, High Huntress."

  She was looking at Morlock's left hand. It was a misty almost shapeless shape all the way past the elbow, and dead-gray like corpse meat above that. The wooden glove Morlock sometimes wore on his left hand had fallen away: the ghost sickness had eaten away his flesh deep into his upper arm. Hlupnafenglu didn't think Morlock would be able to use the glove anymore. But the First Wolf didn't say anything about it, so Hlupnafenglu didn't either.

  The light in Morlock's eyes-and in the cursed sword-was fading. He opened his eyes and said, "Wuinlendhono. Hlupnafenglu."

  "Khretvarrgliu," replied the First Wolf, and Hlupnafenglu just nodded. "I thank you for your deeds in the air last night."

  Morlock raised his right hand, warding off her thanks. "No need. I had my reasons."

  Wuinlendhono lowered her head, as if angry or frustrated, but her low voice was calm as she said, "Do you know what happened to my Rokhlenu?"

  "I saw it," Morlock said. "And now, yes, I think I know what happened to him. In here"-he rapped the barrel with his right hand-"is the motive energy for one of the airships. It seems to be a piece of a moon, or a stone that acts like a moon. I spent much of the morning in visionary contemplation of its light. Rokhlenu was briefly exposed to it, and the results were-well, I assume you have seen him."

  "Yes. I have seen him. Can you help him?"

  "I have two ideas. One will not wholly heal him, but will not kill him. The other may kill him, but may heal him."

  "What are they?"

  "The first: surgery with a silver knife. I could reshape his frame, as either wolf or man. He would be more or less whole, but incapable of transformation; wounds caused by silver seem to leave permanent traces on a werewolf."

  "If you are talking like this to horrify me, you don't know who I am. It would take more than you to horrify me."

  Morlock looked at her briefly, his eyes wide with surprise, then shook his head. "The other idea is simpler and more dangerous. Rokhlenu's being was infected by something from the moonstone's light. I think I know what it is, and I may be able to blast it clear of him."


  "That does sound dangerous. Please do it."

  "Rokhlenu will choose."

  "He's incapable of choosing. I am his mate and have the right to speak for him; that is our law."

  "I live by my own law. Blood for blood, and only blood. Rokhlenu is my blood, harven coruthen."

  "I don't know what that means," said Wuinlendhono, and now she did sound angry. "But I am the First Wolf of the outliers. And-"

  "How well do you know him, really?" Morlock interrupted.

  "I am him. He is me. We were one at the mating and we are one still."

  "Then trust him to make the right choice. I will fight with you or with anyone, Wuinlendhono, if there is some point to it. Is there a point to this?"

  Wuinlendhono raised her head and looked at him. "No. Is there anything you need?"

  "Time. Glass. Sunlight. A pair of able hands."

  "I have hands," said Hlupnafenglu eagerly.

  "I'll leave you to it, then," Wuinlendhono said. She stood in a single fluid motion, looked at Morlock as if she were going to say something, then walked off without doing so.

  The time was time. Hlupnafenglu didn't know where it came from, and he lost track of where it went to. He spent much of it making glass. Morlock wanted enough to make a decent-size corridor of plate glass. He taught Hlupnafenglu how to make it unbreakable by folding it through higher dimensions. That was immensely entertaining to the red werewolf, and he enjoyed doing it. Meanwhile, Morlock often lay working in the sun, the glow of his irises visible through his closed lids even at noon. On the third day, he began to do it with a vat of molten glass beside him. Hlupnafenglu wandered by the vat occasionally. There were odd shapes-outlines and angles gleaming icy-pale through the yellow-orange molten glass. They reminded Hlupnafenglu of the shapes Morlock had taught him for representing fourthand fifth-dimensional polytopes in three-dimensional space. But he found it too hot to bear for long-the sun seemed more intense there, as if something were funnelling sunlight toward the vat.