The Wolf Age (49 page)

"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.

One afternoon, while Morlock worked in the sunlight, Hlupnafenglu was welding glass plates for the corridor. He enjoyed all the tasks of the current project, but this was his favorite, as it involved interaction with the flames. He enjoyed their ill-tempered self-regarding little personalities, and they spoke mostly in a language Morlock called Wardspeech. Learning the language was an interesting contrast to the tasks of executing fourdimensional designs while limited to three-dimensional senses, although he enjoyed that as well. Hlupnafenglu was enjoying most things these days: his mind was finally awake after a long sleep, and it was fun to see all the things it could do.

Often Hrutnefdhu came by to assist him, but today he was alone, except for the flames. He had just cajoled them to seal up a section of corridor wall when the hill was shaken by a roar like thunder. Hrutnefdhu ran out of the cave and saw a somewhat singed-looking Morlock picking himself up from the ground. The vat was in fragments scattered about the hillside. And where the glass had been was a spiked stonelike object, too bright to look at directly.

"We must establish a zone of Perfect Occlusion around the sunstone," said Morlock matter-of-factly.

It was obvious what the sunstone was, so Hlupnafenglu asked, "How do we establish Perfect Occlusion?"

"I'll show you," Morlock said, and he explained the process carefully to Hlupnafenglu, talking him through it.

"Khretvarrgliu, why are you teaching me so much?" Hlupnafenglu asked when the sunstone was sealed in the Perfect Occlusion.

"I am dying," said Morlock, as matter-of-factly as before. "This way I can pass on some of my skills. Plus, you have natural gifts for making. If you wish to pursue the craft, you should seek out Wyrtheorn of Thrymhaiam. He is a master of making, and was my pupil for many years. He can teach you much."

"Khretvarrgliu, I will."

"We've done enough for today."

That meant that Hlupnafenglu was to leave, because Morlock was going to start drinking. Or at least, that's what it often meant.

But one day, about five days later, Hlupnafenglu returned around dawn to find that Morlock had been working all night. By now they had actually built the glass corridor, setting it into the side of the hill. In the night, Morlock had silvered all the glass, and laid down a second layer of glass, sealing in the deadly metal. It was now safe to be near, although Hlupnafenglu felt dread standing next to it, and he could see that Hrutnefdhu (who had accompanied him that morning) felt it, too.

Morlock's face was gray with weariness, and Hlupnafenglu was alarmed to see that the ghost illness had eaten even more of Morlock's arm during the night. Nonetheless, the crooked man declined to rest.

"There are things we must discuss," Morlock said.

Hlupnafenglu thought he was going to talk about his imminent death, a conversation the red werewolf had been dreading. But instead Morlock started talking about the sun and the moon.

Morlock explained that every living body had three physical parts: a core-self, a shell, and an impulse cloud. This last was so tenuous in being that it was almost nonphysical, but not quite, and it could (under certain circumstances) survive the death of the person or animal whose life had produced it.

"Is that what a ghost is?" Hrutnefdhu asked reverently.

"I don't know what a ghost is," Morlock said. "But this is what an impulse cloud is."

He explained how the sun drew impulse clouds up into the sky, so that the sky was full of them. The moons gathered them together and sent them back to earth, entangled in moonlight.

"That is what powered the airships," Morlock said. "A moonstone imbued with moonlight and impulse clouds. It is the impulse clouds that distorted Rokhlenu's being."

"Is it impulse clouds that make us change from the day shape to the night shape?" Hlupnafenglu asked.

"Yes," Morlock said. "Your natures are permeable, somehow-receptive to the impulse clouds latent in moonlight. Whether you are wolves that can become human or men and women that can become wolves, I don't know. But I suspect that each shapechanger is receptive to impulse clouds from at least one other animal. There may be some who can assimilate and change into many different kinds of animals: I don't know."

The pale werewolf asked, "Then why is Rokhlenu distorted? The moonstone just issued light similar to the moons-"

"But more intense, more concentrated," Morlock said. "There is a miasma in some impulse clouds, the effluvium of the dead soul. If it accumulates in a werewolf's being, he or she becomes distorted, unable to change."

"Like semiwolves," Hlupnafenglu said. "Or ... never-wolves?"

"I think so," Morlock agreed.

He waited.

Hrutnefdhu was waiting, too. He expected Morlock to explain himself presently. But Hlupnafenglu knew better: the maker was waiting for someone else to take the next step-to follow in Morlock's trail, as it were.

"You will put the sunstone at one end of the corridor, the moonstone at the other," Hlupnafenglu said. "Thus you will blast the miasma clear."

"And, perhaps," Morlock said, "tear Rokhlenu's impulse cloud to shreds. That will be death."

"You could try it on another first," Hlupnafenglu said, "if-" He paused, then said, "I am a never-wolf."

"Yes," Morlock said.

"Try it on me," Hlupnafenglu said. "If it doesn't work you can think up something else. The gnyrrand is more important than I am."

Morlock shook his head. "Rokhlenu is my old friend, but I say no to that. If you choose to take the risk, I am glad. But not because you matter less than him."

Hlupnafenglu enjoyed risks the way he enjoyed almost everything, so he laughed.

They placed the Occlusion containing the sunstone at one end of the mirrored corridor. Then Hlupnafenglu walked in the open end. He was no longer laughing: being encased in silver was a nightmarish feeling.

Morlock and Hrutnefdhu rolled the black barrel over to the other end of the corridor. Then Morlock established a Perfect Occlusion there, and Hlupnafenglu found himself in absolute darkness.

"I'm going to introduce an aperture and release the light of the sunstone," Morlock's voice said, drifting down the glass corridor through the darkness.

Hlupnafenglu couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he said nothing.

The aperture opened like a golden eye, and the mirror-bright corridor was filled with burning light.

The red werewolf felt a strange pulling sensation, as if the burning eye were drawing him to it. He resisted.

Then a white eye opened at the other end of the corridor. It pushed him as the sunstone pulled him; the light more than redoubled in ferocity; it passed through him like silver swords. Something left him, something that did not belong in him, and he was less and more because of it.

Then the silver eye closed, and he was left gasping in the bitter sunlight. Moments later, the aperture in the Occlusion clenched shut and Hlupnafenglu was left in a grateful darkness. Soon, too soon, the sunstone end of the corridor opened: Morlock had moved the Occlusion so that Hlupnafenglu could exit the corridor.

Tentatively, he walked out into the tame morning light.

It had been a lifetime since he had entered. The world looked very different than it had a few moments before.

"You look all right," Hrutnefdhu said, glancing at him up and down. "How do you feel?"

"Strange," Hlupnafenglu said. "I ... I remember who I am. Do you know who I am, Hrutnefdhu?"

"I suspected," the pale werewolf admitted.

Hlupnafenglu turned to Morlock. "Do you know who I am?"

"You are Hlupnafenglu," Morlock replied calmly.

The red werewolf found he had raised his hands in fists, as if to attack Morlock. He lowered them. What if he could kill the crooked man? Morlock was sick, already dying. It was a deed of no particular bite. On the other hand, the crooked man was Khretvarrgliu, the beast slayer. Sick as he was, he might yet defeat any foe. That, too, would win no honor-teeth for the red werewolf. He looked for a few moments at his fists and then unclenched them.

"I am," he said. "I am Hlupnafenglu now. And who I was before ... it doesn't matter."

Morlock shrugged and opened his right hand. (The ghostly left one was hidden under his cloak.) Hrutnefdhu said, "Everyone accepts you as Hlupnafenglu. There's no reason for that to change."

The red werewolf nodded. He looked at the sun, the hillside, his two friends.

"I think it worked," he said.

"We'll wait and see," Morlock said. "There will be a moon aloft tonight."

It did work. After sunset, Hlupnafenglu stood in the light of Trumpeter and felt the night shape steal over him like a dream. He shook loose from his human clothing and capered, howling, in the third moon's light, a dark-red wolf with golden eyes. Hrutnefdhu, now also wearing the night shape, knocked him over.

They chased each other along the eastern and southern margins of the swamp, and from there southward into the plains, running deep into the dark land and deep into the night, laughing and singing in Moonspeech.

When Morlock saw the transformation he turned away and went down the hill. He crossed the water and went to the den on the first floor of the lair-tower where Rokhlenu was being kept.

Wuinlendhono was there alone with her husband, but he would neither look at her nor speak to her. He had not spoken, eaten, or drunk since his fall from the airship.

But Morlock spoke to him and to her. It was a long conversation; Morlock said much and Wuinlendhono said more. Rokhlenu said nothing until the hour before dawn, and then he spoke at last.

The yellow semiwolf was cringing before the gray-muzzles of the Sardhluun and Neyuwuleiuun packs. Their gnyrrands were there, with their reeves and fellow-cantors of the campaign, and the werowances of both packs, with their pack councils.

Wurnafenglu, wearing the night shape, sang while the yellow semiwolf cringed. He sang that they should listen to the informant from the mongrel outliers, the honorable traitor Rululawianu (because loyalty to traitors was the only treason, and treason to traitors was the highest honesty). There was hope like rich marrow in his news, if they had the bite to crack the bone.

The Werowance of Neyuwuleiuun sang a song frostier by far than the night's warm air. He pointed out that his pack had suffered dearly from the opportunities Wurnafenglu had brought them. Their airships, the glory of the Neyuwuleiuun, were lost-one ruined, the other stranded in a field of poisonous silver waste, and apparently robbed of its motive element. They could not afford such a loss, nor another such loss.

The Werowance of the Sardhluun sang a sad song in reply, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the honored and honorable Werowance of the Neyuwuleiuun werewolves. How often he had warned Wurnafenglu that he was reckless and his actions were ill judged! All these comments were before trustworthy witnesses who could be produced at need. He had spoken at length about the perils and shame Wurnafenglu had brought to his own pack by his criminally inept stewardship of the Vargulleion, foundation of the Sardhluun pride, now an empty stone box. Still the Neyuwuleiuun could not hold the glorious Sardhluun werewolves culpable for the bad advice of one disfavored and deranged pack member. They must unite for the betterment of both packs against all their enemies-within their respective packs and without. He did not look toward Wurnafenglu as he sang, but many others from both packs did.