by James Enge
The dwarf’s dark gray eyes moved in slightly different directions, an oddly lizardlike behavior that she had learned to associate with dwarvish embarrassment when she was in the north a few years ago.
“Ath,” he replied. “Ath, rokhlan, sael.” He raised the mug of beer in his fist.
“I hadn’t realized that whoring was among your harven-kinsman’s talents,” Aloê remarked easily. She knew about fifteen words of Dwarvish and liked to trot them out whenever she had the chance, which wasn’t too often in A Thousand Towers.
“Neither had I,” Deor replied. “But poverty brings out new sides of people, it seems.”
“Poverty? God Sustainer: I thought the Ambrosii were as rich as filth.”
“I’m not sure what that means, rokhlan, but I am sure that Morlock is poor as a fish.”
Aloê wasn’t completely sure what that meant, but she nodded and gestured with the wineglass to continue.
“I mean, if he’s going to keep striking the tower with lightning, how can he expect to keep workers?”
“Um. I’m not sure.” In fact, she was not sure what the metaphor striking the tower with lightning meant; it sounded vaguely salacious.
“The old workers have to be paid off; the new workers have to be hired; it all costs money. And a little goldmaking would solve all our problems.”
“Don’t do that,” she said reflexively. “No one will do business with you anymore. Not that lots of people don’t do a little goldmaking now and then,” she admitted. “But the trick is to do it when you don’t seem to need money. Uh. So I’ve heard.”
“And so I’ve heard. So we have to sell things, right? Morlock is a master of makers, perhaps the greatest of all since, well, you know.”
She didn’t, but nodded anyway.
“So Morlock is teaching these rubes to play Púca so that they’ll all want packs of cards. Which we happen to have stacks of in Tower Ambrose; we spent the last couple days inking them.”
“Hey, I got a regal velox!” someone at the card table was shouting.
“Remarkable,” Morlock said coolly. “A very rare hand.”
“Where can I get some of these?”
“Take the pack away with you. I have more at home.”
“Thanks, Crookback! Who’s in for the next hand?”
Morlock’s left hand clenched as he turned away to look straight into the pale scarred face of Vocate Noreê.
“Good fortune, Vocate,” he said politely.
“It’ll be good when you and all your kind are dead,” remarked the terrible old woman, loudly enough to be heard by Aloê and a number of other people in the crowd nearby, who turned to look pointedly at the exchange.
Morlock shrugged. “Then. Bad fortune to you, I suppose.”
The crowd laughed and turned away, judging Morlock the victor in the exchange.
Aloê herself thought that he’d handled it well: his calm indifference to Noreê’s naked hate seemed especially wounding to the old vocate.
“Morlock’s pretty good at backchat,” Deor conceded grudgingly. “If he says only one word in a conversation, it’ll be the last one. What in the canyon is wrong with him now?”
Morlock had turned away from Noreê’s hate-filled gaze and taken one long haggard look in the direction of Deor and Aloê. Now he turned again and walked away into the crowd.
“Noreê must have stung him pretty deeply,” Aloê guessed, grabbing a fresh glass of wine and another mug of beer from a passing steward. “Here.” She handed the beer to Deor.
“Thanks!” the dwarf said. “I always have trouble getting their attention, for some reason.” Now he had two mugs: his full and his empty.
Aloê had left her empty glass on the steward’s tray, but the man hadn’t waited for Deor’s mug. “Steward!” she called out, and the man came back as if she’d grabbed him by the ear.
“Take my friend’s empty also, please,” she said.
The steward looked at her, gazed vacantly about, finally saw Deor waving the empty mug, and lowered his tray to accommodate the dwarf. He stole one last glance at Aloê and walked away into the crowd.
“I like how you did that,” the dwarf said approvingly. “I usually have to whack them on their belt buckles to get them to notice me. But I don’t think it’s your height. There are lots of people here taller than you. You didn’t scream at him, either. It was as if he had a reason to listen whenever you talked to him. I—oh. Uh-oh. Oh, God Avenger.”
“What is it?” Aloê said with some concern.
“Nothing too important. A question has been bothering me the last few days, and I think I just figured it out. You—um, you’re not looking especially well tonight, Vocate Aloê, are you? You always look pretty much like this, don’t you?”
“You’re not flirting with me, are you, Deor?”
“Eh? God Creator: no. Our relations are much better regulated than the conniptions you of the Other Ilk twist yourselves into. For instance, I just got a note from the gynarch of my clan, indicating whom I am to mate with and when, subject to the Eldest’s approval and my consent. It won’t be too much trouble, and I’m looking forward to raising a few younglings. No, I was just asking a factual question.”
“All right. In that spirit: no. I think I must look as I usually do. My tunic isn’t especially new; it’s one of the three I wear regularly. Why do you ask?”
“Just a kind of . . . a kind of esthetic interest, I guess. What do you think of this Kaenish mess?”
They talked for a while about the dying gods of Kaen, and then the currents of the crowd carried them apart.
Later she found herself sitting with Thea on a stone bench by a fountain outside of the entrance hall. Thea was fending off questions from a woman who wanted her to do something Thea had no interest in doing.
“But if those statues aren’t wrong, nothing is wrong!” the strange woman was insisting. “There they are, naked, doing things no one should do in public! Someone should do something about it! But the Graith has refused my plea many a time!”
“I don’t say it’s right,” Thea replied. “I just say it’s none of my business. I don’t judge; I defend. Those statues are not a threat to the Wardlands.”
“They are a threat to the Wardlands’ morality and ethical fiber. What is more important than that?”
“Them,” Aloê corrected absently. “Those are two things.”
“Look,” said Thea patiently, “if you think the statues are so dangerous, why don’t you take them down yourself?”
“But they’re on his property!”
“Why do you assume we can do what you can’t do? Why assume you can’t do what we can do?”
“But . . . but . . . you’re the Graith.”
“‘A pack of silly old fools, full of talk and empty of action,’” Aloê quoted dreamily.
The strange woman glanced with horror at Aloê, still wearing her bloodred vocate’s cloak, and seemed to be about to say something.
“We have no more rights than you in the matter, madam,” Thea intervened. “The Graith is a voluntary association with a specific purpose—like the Arbiters of the Peace or the Road-mender’s Union. But we are not a government. We’re just people who are responsible for what they do—like you.”
“But I had to send my children to school by a different route!”
“That seems like the best solution, all around.”
“But I want a better one!”
“Maybe you’ll find one. But, God Avenger witness my words, I hope it does not involve the Graith, or me. And now, if you’ll excuse us, madam, my friend and I are going to go in and dance.”
They left the woman sputtering behind them and re-entered the entrance hall.
“I’m not sure if I’m dancing tonight,” Aloê said.
“I’m sure that I’m not,” Thea replied. “A horse stepped on my foot at Baran’s place a halfmonth ago, and it’s still giving me trouble. But I was tired of explaining to that woman that she did not li
ve in a monarchy.”
“I was at dinner at Earno’s the other day—”
“Namedropper.”
“—and someone . . . it was Thynê, the chronicler, as a matter of fact, if it’s names you want. Anyway, she was saying that monarchy is a natural instinct, that people want to follow a leader like sheep want to follow a shepherd, that the Wardlands is destined to fall back into a monarchy someday.”
“What do you think?” Thea asked.
“I don’t know. There are lots of people who are afraid to take responsibility for their own lives, like that woman back there. But there are just as many people, some of them the same people, who are afraid of having their lives interfered with. So. I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t think anything’s inevitable. Except my next drink.”
There was a stewards’ table near at hand, and Thea tapped on the red-cloaked crooked shoulders of the man standing in front of it.
“Order us a drink, won’t you, Morlock?” Thea said cheerily.
“Eh,” said Morlock, and stood aside.
“I guess that will be more efficient,” Thea agreed, and they stepped forward. Thea had a mug of beer and Aloê a glass of gently steaming tea. Morlock sipped one of his own and eyed them gloomily over its rim. He still hadn’t recovered from his encounter with Noreê, apparently. Anyway, whenever he met Aloê’s eye his face seemed haggard, his expression wounded.
“You’re not saying much today, Morlock,” Thea said, after a pull or two at her beer. “What do you think of this Kaenish mess?”
Morlock shrugged. “If the Kaenish gods are dying: what’s killing them? I don’t care about the Kaeniar—”
“It’s not nice to say so.”
“—but a threat to them might be a threat to us. That’s all.”
“Well, that’s our business, isn’t it?” Thea reached out and touched the scar at the base of Morlock’s neck. “What’s that? Any threat to the Guard there?”
“Woman bit me.”
“Did she have reason?”
“She thought so.”
“Business or pleasure?”
Morlock’s face took on a remembering expression. “Both.”
“Oho. I didn’t think you were the type to pay for it, Morlock.”
“I do not. I did not. You will excuse me.” He brushed past them and walked into the crowd.
“Will we excuse him?” Thea wondered. “I’m not so sure. I thought he was a little terse when we were fighting dragons together up north, but he was positively chatty compared to the way he’s been lately. What the rip is wrong with him?”
“Noreê’s getting at him, I think. They had words, earlier.”
“Oh. Yes. She does hate all the Ambrosii. That’s nothing new, though. I mean, she tried to kill him on the day he was born.”
“What? You’re joking.”
“What’s the punchline, then? No, I think it’s true. The dwarves stopped it somehow; I heard about it from them when we were up north. They don’t care for her much up there.”
“Ick.”
“Well, I used more syllables when I heard, but yes. Come on; let’s mingle. Maybe we’ll see Morlock and Noreê mix it up. Maybe we’ll see some pretty fellows dancing. Maybe Naevros will show up without that vile whore he’s been squiring around town. The night is full of possibilities, and beer.”
“I hate beer.”
“Then try the possibilities.”
Morlock was walking through the crowd, as blind as a stone, when he heard someone say quietly, “Hwaet, Morlocktheorn.”
In that crowd, there was only one person that could be. It was against dwarvish custom to speak a language that those nearby didn’t share—unless what was being said was none of their business, as this obviously was.
“Hey, Morlock-my-kin,” Deor was saying in Dwarvish. “Did you talk to her?”
“Thea?” Morlock replied. “A little.”
“No, thump-head. Did you talk to her? Please don’t pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about.”
“What would be the point?” Morlock said, opening his hands concessively.
“The point of talking to her? Those-who-watch, guide my steps. How in Helgrind’s stone jaws should I know what the point is? If you of the Other Ilk had sensible arrangements like us, the question wouldn’t even arise. But I tell you something, my harven-kin— No, you will not turn away; you will listen to me.”
“I am Other Ilk. To you. To her. To everyone here. To everything that lives.”
“What? No, don’t try to explain it. Listen, I said, and listen I meant. You don’t have anyone to arrange a mating with her. Stop writhing; that’s what you are thinking about, I take it?”
“It’s not thinking,” Morlock said miserably.
“All right. Whatever you call it. No one can set you up. You will have to do it yourself.”
“I’ve seen others talk to her. She sends them all away. It’s no good. Nothing would be any good.”
“Is she mated with Naevros? Is that it? I’ve heard some people say so.”
“No,” Morlock said thoughtfully. “I don’t think so.”
“Then I don’t see what you have to lose. If you are waiting for her to be attracted by your air of mystery and make the first advance, I’m afraid your strategy doesn’t seem to be working. Just talk to her. About the Graith. About Kaen. About that sword you are making. About cards. About anything. Give something a chance to happen.”
“I can’t.”
“Are you . . . are you afraid?” The notion seemed so bizarre that Deor hesitated to even suggest it.
Morlock reflected for a moment, then said, “Possibly. But I mean I can’t. When I see her—when I am near her . . . I can no longer see her nor anything else. A golden haze hangs in front of everything and my tongue turns to stone. I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t speak. I have been afraid; I have been insane with anger; I have been ashamed, exultant, forgetful, remembering. None of it was like this. Yet it was all like this.”
“Um.” Deor thought of the poem he had read in Morlock’s workshop. “Sounds like love, I guess.”
Morlock shook his head, not as if he disagreed, but in bewilderment. “I loved Oldfather Tyr. I love you, my harven-brothers, Trua Old, and my other friends. I love my work. I love the mountains of Northhold. This is not like that.”
“It may be the wrong word. Your mating, the mating of your ruthen kin I mean, isn’t just a necessary thing, like eating, but something wrapped with emotion, delight, and pain. They call that ‘love’ around here. But maybe there’s a better word.”
“I have mated with women before. It was not like this.”
“You have?” Deor hadn’t known this. “Well, you are full of surprises, Morlocktheorn. Perhaps you should seek out one of those women again to relieve your—er—whatever it is you’re feeling?”
“Another woman?” Morlock muttered. “Besides her?”
“Precisely. Precisely that. Do you think it would work?”
“No. I’ve no better notion, though.”
“Then.”
Morlock nodded solemnly, punched him gently on the shoulder and walked away into the crowd.
Thea and Aloê had joined up with Jordel and Baran again. After a quick raid on the refectory, they drifted on the currents of the crowd. These carried them finally into the great octagonal dancing hall at the center of the honeycomb of smaller rooms.
“What is that music?” Thea asked, as their ears were assaulted by a barrage of drums, lightened by the harsh bright voices of bells.
“Dancing drum-choir,” Jordel said, with feigned reluctance. “You get them in Westhold. I guess we’re for it, Baran.”
“Speak for yourself,” Baran replied. “You’re the one who likes to kick his heels up.”
“The people demand it. Who am I to deny them what they want?”
“I want you to take a vow of silence.”
Jordel held a finger in front of his mouth
and silently offered Thea his hand. They spun away onto the dance floor—in spite of Thea’s foot, in spite of Jordel’s cruelty in the past, in spite of everything. Aloê looked at the transfigured expression on Thea’s face, looked away, and shook her head. She wondered what it was like to feel that way about someone. The drummers and bell-ringers of the choir were all skipping about in unpredictably coiling patterns; the other dancers dashed between them whenever they found an opening. It seemed to be half dance, half competition.
“There’s your friend Morlock,” Baran pointed out.
Aloê followed Baran’s gesture and saw Morlock whirling through the tangled lines of the drum-choir. Wrapped in his arms, and vice versa, was a tall cold-faced dark-haired woman.
“Why do you call him my friend?”
Baran was surprised. “He is often with Naevros and you. Or so I thought.”
“With Naevros, but not me.”
Baran shrugged. His eyes were still on the dancers. Morlock and his partner—whatshername, that frosty woman, the Arbiter of the Peace up in that horrible little town by the Hill of Storms—anyway, the two of them were plunging back and forth through the choir, who were laughing and trying to block them. But whenever a gap in the line closed, another opened up, and the deft-footed couple spun through.
“He’s good,” the big man said reluctantly.
“She leads as often as he does,” Aloê disagreed.
“That’s part of being good—letting your partner lead when she knows what to do.”
“Then why don’t you say, ‘She’s good’?”
“She is.”
“B,” Aloê laughed, “you’re trying to get me to dance.”
Baran blushed a little and admitted, “I do kind of like it. But the girl is supposed to ask. Woman, I mean.”
“I’ll never figure you Westholders out. Baran, will you dance with me? I am not good, and have no idea what I’m going to do out there.”
“I’ll clue you,” said Baran eagerly, and took her outstretched hand.
It was something just short of a disaster. Their first time through the drum-choir, Aloê knocked a bell right out of the ringer’s hand by smacking it with her elbow. The next time she inadvertently stomped on some poor drummer’s toes.