Wrath-Bearing Tree

by James Enge

  “What’s wrong?” said Morlock. “I’d like to talk to your god.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you want,” the mace-bearer snapped. But, when he saw the spear-carriers gazing at him with curious looks he added, “We’ll have to come back later. God is asleep.”

  Morlock shrugged and walked with his captors back to his cell.

  But he had something to think about. For one thing, he knew that the local god needed sleep. And he thought he had recognized a claw-mark on the white stone steps. And the center of the temple floor had recently been reinforced with fresh pillars—elegant in form, but highly functional and cut from a different stone from the rest of the temple. It was interesting.

  He waited a good part of the day, long enough to be bored with his own guesses. He looked out of the small barred window in the door and saw that there was a guard set outside. He’d expected that. The guard, if he wasn’t mistaken, was the same one who had cut his feet loose. There was a scar or something on the left side of his snout.

  “Hey, guard,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  The guard looked at him sideways through a serpentine red eye.

  “Eh,” said Morlock, and turned away.

  He waited a while, thinking about what he knew and what he guessed was true, and how he could turn it to his own advantage. It did not look promising. He wished Aloê were here to talk for him.

  He was so deep in thought that he didn’t realize at first that someone was talking to him. “Hey, Morlock,” the guard had said through the cell window.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Danadhar,” the guard said.

  “Thank you,” Morlock said. “The one who struck me when I first arrived, the mace-bearer—”

  “Skellar.”

  “—he said you do not call yourselves mandrakes.”

  “We do not,” the guard said coldly, and started to turn away.

  “Wait, if you would,” Morlock said. “I don’t mean to offend. What do you call yourselves?”

  “Oh. We call us the Gray People, or simply the Grays.”

  “If I were back home among my people,” Morlock said, “we might exchange family names and family news. But I will not offer to do that, as it might place you under some obligation.” Under Thrymhaiam, hospitality was a powerful force, and he was curious if it was here.

  “It is better not,” Danadhar admitted shamefacedly, and Morlock knew his guess was close to the target. The Gray People had bound themselves to a code of virtue like his harven-kin.

  “Let’s talk of other things,” Morlock said.

  “Like what?” the guard asked emptily.

  If the Gray Man was looking to Morlock for guidance in conversation, he really must be in a sad way. Morlock suggested, “Tell me about your god.”

  The guard began to turn away again. “Mocker!” he hissed.

  “Wait!” Morlock said. “Why are you angry? Your god asked to speak with me. Don’t you think that, eh, that my curiosity is natural?”

  “I suppose so,” Danadhar said reluctantly. “Yes, I suppose so. But it was the way you put it.”

  “How?”

  “You say ‘your god’ as if there were many. But there is one true god, and his truth is for everybody.”

  “Understood.” Morlock pondered his next statement carefully. “Danadhar,” he said at last, “my own tradition, as taught me by my harven-kin in the western mountains, forbids me to self-bind in casual oaths. But I assure you that I will not mock you or your faith.”

  “Well. The God-speaker says our faith is true everywhere, true for everyone. It seems strange if we are not to tell others of it.”

  “Then.”

  “I don’t know where to start. The God teaches us not to steal, not to withhold good things from those who need them, to honor our blood—”

  “Harven ruthenye,” Morlock said. “Chosen and given.”

  “Yes,” Danadhar said. “Yes.”

  “My harven-kin taught me much the same,” Morlock said.

  “Then the words are true. They are true everywhere.”

  “Eh,” Morlock said. “They are good rules. That is true. And your—the God taught you all these things?”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes, he did!”

  Morlock measured the urgency of this statement against any need for such urgency.

  “But,” he ventured.

  Danadhar was silent.

  “Did the God appear only recently?” Morlock guessed.

  “Yes,” Danadhar sobbed.

  “Does he look like he was supposed to?”

  “He looks more like the Ovinar.”

  “What’s that?” Morlock didn’t recognize the word.

  “The Ovinar. The Enemy. The one responsible for all the evil in the world.”

  “Eh.”

  “The God-speaker says it is a test of our faith. He says. If we can see the God even in the Anti-God . . . then our faith is strong. I’m not sure—I’m not sure if my faith is that strong. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t talk anymore.” But he didn’t go away. It was as if he was waiting for something.

  “Danadhar,” said Morlock thoughtfully, “after the God began to dwell in the temple, did the dragon-plague begin to spread among the Grays?”

  “Shut up!” the guarded roared through the window. “Shut up or I’ll kill you!”

  Morlock shut up. He had pushed the Gray One as far as he could.

  Danadhar’s snout disappeared from the cell window.

  Morlock sat silent among his thoughts as the sunlight faded outside.

  Presently, the troop of spear-carriers returned and told Danadhar that God was awake again. They opened the cell door and led him to the temple again.

  They went again in procession through the town. It was dusk and there were snout-nosed children playing hide-and-seek in the village streets. The spear-carriers gently nudged them out of the way when they ran up to stare at Morlock with wide red eyes.

  Skellar, bearing his gilded mace, was waiting for them at the temple steps. He curtly told the guards to wait there, then had Morlock precede him up the white stone steps to the temple.

  “God, I have brought him,” Skellar said as they entered.

  The interior of the temple was a single great room, but it had not always been. Morlock saw ragged scars running down the length of the load-bearing walls in various spots: the traces of interior walls that had been cut out.

  The center of the temple was a sort of well or waterless pool. Filling it with his serpentine coils was Rulgân the Outlier.

  He had changed much since Morlock last saw him. His green-black scales had dulled to a leaden sheen. His right foreleg, in contrast, was a cage of intricate silver wires. Within the cage were the withered black bones of the dragon’s lightning-ruined leg. And also, glowing like an eye in rapture, the Banestone of Saijok Mahr.

  There was very little fire evident about the dragon at all, only a little smoke trailing from his jaws. The only light in the chamber came from the Banestone and from a peculiar crystalline device. Luminous cables extended from it into the narrow apertures of Rulgân’s ears, and into the empty holes where his eyes had been.

  What was that thing? Was it intended to heal Rulgân, or imprison him, or something else entirely? Morlock’s fingers itched to examine it, but he doubted he would ever have the chance.

  In spite of the state of his body, the dragon’s voice still rumbled, deep as the canyon at the world’s dark heart, when he said to Skellar, It is well. Leave us.

  Morlock could not read expression on the plated faces of the Gray Folk, or even tell if their faces were meant to communicate emotion. But Skellar’s stiff bow practically shouted his reluctance to leave. Still, he left.

  You are surprised by my appearance, I see, Rulgân rumbled. Or perhaps you thought me dead.

  “I hoped you were,” Morlock admitted. “But you seem to be dying now.”

  No. This is a—This is temporary.

  Morl
ock shrugged.

  I wanted to see you, said the dragon, to let you know I won. I am the person who did it to you. Let there be no doubt.

  “Then?”

  If you are asking what I have done, the dragon said with some irritation, I wish you would say so. However. What you would ask is of no moment. What I say is: I have defeated you, Morlock. When the Two Powers find you, remember it was I who gave them you.

  Morlock grunted skeptically. “And then you expect their reward to heal you from this . . . state?”

  The dragon’s leaden frame rippled, and the mutilated face bent in lines of surprise.

  This is their reward, the dragon said. They found me, floating where you left me in the ocean. They learned what I had to tell them. It fed their visualizations, and they knew when and where they would encompass you. So they brought me here and installed me as the god of the mandrakes.

  “Eh.”

  You don’t understand, I see. This device was invented by the mandrake priests of old to draw new citizens to this town—new converts to the simple mandrake faith of virtue and fairness. They hoped to build a civilization of mandrakes on this bleak coast.

  “They’ve made a good start.”

  The dragon laughed derisively. The town is very old, and as large now as it has ever been. Someday a conquering king will notice it and sponge it off the map.

  “In the long run, we’re all dead.”

  I don’t know what you mean by that. But this device allows me to see through the eyes of every mandrake in the world. I cannot speak to them yet, persuade them yet, control them yet. That is what the device is for, and the skills may come in time. But the wealth of knowledge I have gained in this short time! I have begun to visualize as the gods do, constructing scenarios of the world, past/present/future.

  Morlock looked with interest on his enemy. He was hoarding knowledge now, not gold. And feeling the impulse to share it, if only through boasting.

  “I congratulate you,” he said, without irony.

  The dragon laughed derisively and said, And I saw how you were teasing Danadhar. Go easy on him, please. I have plans for that one. Skellar is old and corrupt, commanding little respect among the mandrakes.

  “They don’t like to be called that.”

  I, their god, am above such concerns. You, their prisoner, are not. Morlock: farewell forever.

  “Until next time,” Morlock said, and turned away.

  Danadhar was waiting at the foot of the temple stairs among the other spear-carriers.

  “Come,” he said impatiently to Morlock.

  Morlock walked among his captors to a round house faced with black granite, standing not far from the temple.

  “Go in,” Danadhar told him.

  Morlock opened the door and went in.

  The interior of the house, like the temple, was one single room. But, unlike the temple, it had been built that way.

  The floor of the house was heaped with gold and silver and a scattering of gems. On the heap, facedown, lay a Gray Man. He was bereft of kilt or mace, but Morlock thought he recognized him as the God-speaker, Skellar.

  Skellar was not just lying atop the treasure; he was grovelling in it. His snout was buried deep in gold coins: kissing or nuzzling them.

  “I am here,” Morlock said, to cut short this embarrassing display.

  Skellar rolled over on his side to face Morlock, but did not rise. There were gems and coins adhering to his genitals, apparently stuck there by some sort of oil or smegma.

  “What did God say to you?” Skellar demanded.

  “Why didn’t you stay and eavesdrop?” Morlock asked.

  “He has a way of knowing,” Skellar said. “Well?”

  “Then he has a way of knowing that you asked me this, and what I say to you,” Morlock said.

  “Insolence,” Skellar observed coolly. “There was a time when no one in town would have spoken to me thus.”

  “Eh. That must have been some time before my arrival.”

  “Obviously. But things really got bad when God showed up.”

  “Didn’t you ever expect him to? Aren’t you his priest?”

  “Please. Don’t pretend to be naive. Danadhar told me enough about your conversation to let me realize you know what we are about, here.”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  “There is no God, really. The God-speakers of old made up the faith simply to keep the Gray Folk from suffering the dragon-change. I understand the dwarven-kings of old had some similar method. When the God showed up a few months ago and worked the various miracles in the Open Books, I had to accept him or lose my congregation. But I know an opportunist when I see him. I own a mirror after all.”

  “Gods exist. Why didn’t you invite one into your temple?”

  “The God-speakers of old tried that, but they wouldn’t have us,” Skellar said. “Most were former men and women. They wanted to be worshipped by their kindred. Besides . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Gods-as-they-are reign through power, not by example. We need our people to follow a strict moral code, or we will lose them to the dragon-change. We are really better off without a god in the temple. Then people can fill the empty space with their dreams, and things work better for us.”

  “What keeps you from the dragon-change?” Morlock asked, nodding at the hoard.

  “The greatest discovery of the ancient God-speakers, greater even than morality.”

  “Yes?”

  “Hypocrisy!” cried the mandrake, his red eyes alight with enthusiasm and something else. “The tension between pretended morality and its genuine opposite protects the hypocrite from the dragon-change.”

  “Eh.” The air was very smoky in the vast treasure-cluttered room, and Morlock thought he detected the tang of venom in it.

  “It doesn’t matter if you accept the truth on which our civilization is based,” Skellar said stiffly. “But there is a reward for you, perhaps as much as fif—as much as ten gold coins if you will help us to preserve it.”

  “How?”

  The priest asked, “Will you please kill God? Then everything can go back as it was.”

  Morlock laughed. “No. Your god, your problem.”

  “To hell with you then.”

  “And also with you.”

  “I was not speaking metaphorically.” The God-speaker raised his voice. “Danadhar!”

  Slowly, reluctantly, the spear-carrier came through the dark door. He did not look at Skellar or at Morlock. “Yes, God-speaker.”

  “This stranger is an enemy of the God. He must be destroyed. I want you to take him outside of town and kill him.”

  Now Danadhar turned to stare at the priest. “But . . . the faith tells us we must never stain our weapons with unoffending stranger’s blood!”

  “He has offended. Exactly how need not concern you at the moment. But perhaps you are right. Yes, I’m sure you are right.”

  The spear-carrier sighed in relief. “Thank you, God-speaker.”

  “So take his own sword. It is on the hoard, here, let me give—let me loan it to you. Take his sword, and kill him with that. Well out of town, mind you. Then hide the body and bring the sword back to me. I will perform certain rites which will cleanse the sword and you of any accidental blood guilt. Then everything will be all right again, as it was before the stranger came.”

  Danadhar accepted Armageddon from Skellar with obvious reluctance. “God-speaker, please—”

  “Yes?”

  “I am tired and hungry. I have watched all day. Can someone else do this important task?”

  “I am surprised at you, Danadhar, shirking your responsibilities this way. No, someone else may not do it. You are my best lad, Danadhar. The God and I were talking just today about how good you are. You are the only temple-guard I can trust with this.”

  “Yes, God-speaker,” Danadhar said glumly. “Thank you, God-speaker.” He gestured wearily at Morlock with Armageddon and herded him out the door of the God
-speaker’s house.

  “Walk before me,” the Gray snarled at Morlock. “Run and I’ll skewer you.”

  Morlock didn’t run. He waited while Danadhar dismissed the other guards, and then walked ahead of him down the street.

  “Where to?” he asked the Gray.

  “What difference does it make?” groaned Danadhar.

  Morlock didn’t answer. He walked along the street until it was no street any more. They went into the country until the Gray Folk’s town was hidden by the dark shoulder of a hill.

  By then it was full night. Chariot glared redly in the eastern sky; Trumpeter peered through broken clouds high above the western horizon.

  “Stop,” said Danadhar harshly.

  Morlock turned to face his captor.

  There was an oil or water seeping through the plates on Danadhar’s face. (Tears? Sweat? Something else?) The Gray’s right hand trembled as he raised Armageddon to strike at Morlock.

  “It is dangerous for you to do what you know to be wrong,” Morlock observed.

  “But is it wrong?” Danadhar said. “The God-speaker told me to do it! The God makes the faith and the God-speaker teaches it!”

  “You know it is wrong, and you know what the God-speaker is. You have seen how he lives.”

  “He says . . . Some are called to take on the burden of evil so that others can be good. And he has not changed, somehow . . .”

  “Eh,” Morlock said. “The air in his den reeks of smoke and poison. Already, when alone with his hoard, he crawls through it on his belly like a worm.”

  “He said,” Danadhar said sadly. “He told me to.”

  The Gray stabbed halfheartedly at Morlock. Morlock, who had been waiting for the moment, dodged the blade but didn’t avoid it entirely—nor did he intend to. The point slashed his left shoulder deep enough to draw blood; it fell, bright in the shadows, from the glass sword to the dry winter grass, where it began to smolder.

  Danadhar reeled back. “Your blood burns!” he gasped.

  “It does,” said Morlock, holding his bound wrists up to his wounded shoulder. The burning Ambrosial blood began to gnaw through the hempen knots.