The Wide World's End (18 page)

Morlock grunted.

“I wish you would expand on that, Morlock.”

“Eh. It's a solvable problem. But it doesn't solve
our
problem. We might let him die, and try to extract knowledge from the dead brain, or we might extract his brain from his body before it dies and try to bespeak it in some way.”

“Well, well. Let's make this sun-needle thing work, then.”

“Yes.”

Morlock set up an immaterial shell of impulse foci around the fire, making it into an impromptu furnace. Deor found a deposit of sandstone and quarried some to bring back. Using some tongs he happened to have in his backpack (unlike Morlock, he did not believe in travelling light), he placed the fragments in the invisible furnace to begin the glass-making process.

By then, Morlock was deep in rapture, lying like a dead man next to Tyrfing, the crystalline blade glowing black-on-white and white-on-black.

“If you don't mind,” Deor said to Morlock, “I'm going to have a nap. We may be up all night again.”

Morlock said nothing, but Deor didn't expect it. He went and wrapped himself in his bedroll and dreamed for five solid hours about flying in the dark over the Wardlands. It was like a nightmare, only he was never afraid.

He awoke in midmorning. Kelat was still unconscious, and his breathing seemed shallower than it ought to be.

“Brains,” said Deor disgustedly, and went over to the invisible forge.

The sandstone was now a globe of dark molten glass with a skewer of golden light in its heart. Morlock was still in deep rapture, keeping the glass hot and guiding the harvest of sunlight.

Deor made an early lunch of grilled sausage, softtack bread, and stromroot sauce. He brooded while he ate: there must be something he could do while Morlock did the real work.

Deor was not the master of all makers; this he knew. He was a plausible seller of goods, a skilled juggler, a good fighter, a decent cook and storyteller, and all these things were valued by his people. But he was not much of a maker, and this was the thing they (and he) valued most.

But he guessed that Morlock's needle of sunlight would be a precarious instrument to wield in colder lights: moonlight and starlight. If this attempt were going to work—and he very much wanted it to work (“Brains!”)—then Morlock would need a Zone of Perfect Occlusion. Deor set about establishing one near to the invisible furnace.

The Perfect Occlusion is an immaterial barrier that does not allow light to pass. To Deor's mind, it ought to have been reflective, but a well-formed occlusion looks like a space where there simply is no light. The geometry of the Occlusion puts the light elsewhere.

Deor was no champion at multidimensional geometry, but he had developed a trial-and-error method that worked, given enough time. With no one to talk to, no books to read, and nothing else to do, he had plenty of time. By the time the sun had passed its midpoint and the chilly spring day was at its closest approach to warmth, he stood in triumph next to a stable Occlusion—a half-globe of darkness six paces in diameter. Six of Deor's paces, admittedly—about three or four of Morlock's rather oversized strides. That should be big enough.

He was revisiting his decision to bring food instead of books when he remembered that Morlock had tucked a few volumes into his pack. Deor snuck over to look at them.

One was in a language that Deor didn't read or recognize. One was a book of mathematical philosophy. One was a book of stories about monsters; it wasn't clear whether the stories were true or not. Rather discontentedly, he settled down on a comfortable rock with the book of monsters and read for a time.

As the red, cold sun sank nearer the eastern horizon, Morlock rose to his feet. Deor looked up and saw that Morlock was still in the rapture of vision. He plunged his glowing sword into the dark orb of molten glass.

The sword faded. The light behind Morlock's closed lids also faded, and he opened his eyes.

Deor tossed the monster book into Morlock's open pack and said, “Over here,
harven
.”

“See it,” Morlock croaked. “Thank you. Bring Kelat, eh?”

“Shouldn't you rest? If—”

“Time is short. Hurry.”

Deor grabbed the nigh-lifeless form of Kelat and dragged him by the collar into the Zone of Perfect Occlusion.

Morlock had already entered. The globe of glass was cooling unevenly; in the light cast by the narrow spiralling blaze of sunlight in the globe's core, Deor could see cracks opening in the surface of the globe.

Morlock speeded up the process by putting the globe down on the dark ground and twisting his blade like a knife.

The globe of dark glass shattered and the thread of light lay bare. Morlock picked it up in his right hand. It cast strange shadows on his face; Deor didn't like it. (But he remembered the alternatives. Brains!)

“Pull one of his eyes open,” Morlock croaked.

Deor wondered which one he should choose. He crouched down beside Kelat and held open both the stranger's eyes. They were stark and staring in the strange light, their pupils gaping wide in the dark.

Morlock thrust the needle of light into Kelat's left eye, spearing the dark pupil in its exact center.

Kelat's eye like a thirsty mouth drank down the light. Darkness fell like a thunderbolt in the Perfect Occlusion.

Kelat began to scream and thrash.

“Out with him!” Morlock hissed.

Morlock must have had the stranger's feet; Deor grabbed one of his arms and they dragged Kelat into the dim light of a cool spring evening.

Now Kelat was sobbing with his face in the dirt. He lifted himself onto all fours and then sat back heavily, staring around him with weeping eyes.

“What's your name?” Deor said, curious whether the stranger remembered it.

“I'm Kelat,” said the stranger. “You . . . you were in the dream. So was the other. I saw the other one in hell. Is he a devil?”

“No.”

“He looks like a devil.”

“What does a devil look like?”

“Him.”

Morlock hawked and spat. He went over to his waterbottle and drank. Then he came back and offered the bottle to Kelat.

The stranger took the bottle suspiciously and sniffed at it. Then he looked relieved and took a sip. At last he drank deep and handed the bottle back to Morlock. “Thanks, friend.”

“Why a friend, now, and not a devil?” Deor asked. “Or is he both?”

“The devil doesn't drink water,” Kelat said, as if everyone should know this. “But I still don't understand why you were in hell, or how I got out.”

“It wasn't hell,” Deor explained, “just a jail. Although there were resemblances, from the little I saw of the place. I'm Deor syr Theorn, by the way. This is my friend and
harven
-kin Morlock Ambrosius.”

“Yes,” Kelat said slowly. “Yes—I was afraid of that.”

“Why ‘afraid'?” Deor asked.

“I will not say at this time. I owe you both much, but some things I must keep to myself.”

“Can you say why you came into the Wardlands, and how?”

“Was that where I was?”

“I'll take that as a no.”

“No. No. I think the dragon sent me. He put—he had someone put something in me. In my—in my face—or in my brain. I don't feel it there anymore. Two of your order took it out of me.”

“You know our order then?”

“Of course. You are members of the Graith of Guardians.”

“You speak Wardic extremely well.”

“We call it ‘the secret speech' in the unguarded lands. I had a Coranian tutor who helped me with it.”

“How many languages do you speak?” Morlock asked.

“The secret speech, and Vraidish, and what they call Ontilian. But I cannot read the old script.”

“And that is why you were sent on this mission?” Morlock asked. “Because of your skill with languages?”

“I sent myself!” Kelat insisted. “At least . . . I set out on my own. But it was not to the Hidden Land . . . the Wardlands, as you call it. There was a dragon in the empty places west of the Sea of Stones; the Gray Folk there worship him as a god. He is said to know many things. I thought he might know how to heal the sun.”

“Rulgân Silverfoot,” said Deor.

“His right foreclaw is metal, it is true,” Kelat said. “But there is a gem there that keeps it alive. I found him. I . . . I was trapped by him. It was he who sent me to you. I don't know why. Most of that time is a dream to me. I remember talking, or him talking through me, but I don't remember the words.”

“Could you find him again?” Deor asked.

Kelat bowed his head and thought. “I will not be taken prisoner again,” he said. “I will not let that thing in my mind again. But I do want to face him again, yes. And kill him if I can, before the sun goes dark. But why do you want to find him?”

“We want what you wanted,” Deor assured him, “to heal the sun. Rulgân may know who is killing it. If we can find that out, we can stop it. But that will be our errand, not killing dragons—as enjoyable an occupation as that may be.”

Kelat looked at Morlock. “He talks,” Kelat said. “Does he talk for you?”

“About this we are of one mind,” Morlock said.

“Well, I will take you to find Rulgân Silverfoot. I owe you much. I was standing in the gate of Death's city when you called me back.”

“Eh.”

“That means,” Deor said, “‘Maybe you can return the favor sometime.' Morlock doesn't say much. I say we eat and sleep and start out sometime after midnight.”

Morlock nodded and turned toward his backpack, no doubt to break out the flatbread and dried meat.

“Morlock syr Theorn,” Deor said sternly, “I beg you to leave that stuff alone until we have to choose between it and death by starvation. I have food enough for all three of us tonight, and we can seek more tomorrow. Now—I'm thinking sandwiches of toasted cheese, sausages, and a few pieces of fruit. I have a bottle of Old Vunthorn we can share as well. Really, Kelat, you must take my word on this. Morlock may have dragged you out of jail and out of the jaws of death, but I'm the one who just saved you from hell.”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

Vengeancer

About the time that Deor was serving out toasted cheese sandwiches, Aloê Oaij was peering into the eyes of a corpse.

After Morlock and Deor left Tower Ambrose for the lockhouse and points unknown, she returned to her bed and lay there for a while on Morlock's side, thinking about one thing or another, but not really trying to get to sleep.

A gravedigger and a healer—that was what she needed. And time. Time that was passing as she lay there.

Eventually she got back up, took a run through the rain room, and dressed for the road: clean but well-worn clothes of black and brown, and a weather-faded red cloak she rarely used anymore. She left, telling the lock not to expect her back for a day or two.

The stable opened politely at her approach, and she went in to saddle her red palfrey, Raudhfax. She seemed glad to get some exercise, and no more inclined to sleep than Aloê was.

Aloê rode her first to the Chamber of the Graith. There were only two thains on guard at the front; she recognized neither, but they evidently knew her, standing aside to let her enter without a word being spoken.

Inside the dome she saw Bleys and a few others—Guardians cloaked red and gray, and a couple of black-robed savants—huddling around the wreckage of the Witness Stone. Well, if anyone could heal the Stone, it would be Bleys.

But Aloê wasn't here to deal with the stone. She proceeded to the Arch of Tidings, one of several little rooms running around the base of the dome that formed the great central chamber. It held a number of message socks in identity with various fixed points in the Wardlands.

The thain on duty there gave her pen, ink, and a palimpsest to write on. She also seemed inclined to chat. Aloê dismissed her with a single lifted eyebrow and sat down to dash off a message to the Lokh of Necrophors at New Moorhope. Then she slipped it in the sock for New Moorhope and hoped someone was on night watch in the message room there.

The Lokh of Necrophors was a voluntary order of gravediggers and morticians. Aloê knew she would need help in studying the body of the murdered Summoner Earno, and she hoped the Lokharch could send her a necrophor experienced in handling murder victims.

She was prepared to wait hours for an answer, and perhaps leave in the morning without one, but to her surprise, as soon as she withdrew her palimpsest from the message sock she saw that the reverse had been inscribed with a response.

Vocate Aloê: Greetings from New Moorhope. I am Gramart of Tren, a necrophor of the third degree. I happen to be on watch here; we junior necrophors often take the late shifts. I venture to write you to say: a necrophor was dispatched to the site of Earno's most-to-be-mourned murder at the request of his family. She is Oluma Cyning, an experienced sifter of strange deaths. She knows to expect a vocate at Big Rock House, although she does not yet know it will be you. Good fortune to you, and bad luck forever to the murderer: Earno was a good man
.