This Crooked Way (3 page)

T
he thug's first thrust sent his sword screeching past Morlock Ambrosius's left ear. He retreated rather than parry Morlock's riposte; then he thrust again in the same quadrant as before. While the thug was still extended for his attack, Morlock deftly kicked him in the right knee. With a better swordsman this would have cost Morlock, but he had the measure of his opponent. The thug went sideways, squawking in dismay, into a pile of garbage.

The point of Morlock's blade, applied to the thug's wrist, persuaded him to release his sword. The toe of Morlock's left shoe, applied to the thug's chin, persuaded him to keep lying where he was.

“What's your story, Slash?” Morlock asked.

“Whatcha mean?”

Morlock's sword point shifted to the thug's throat. “I'm in Sarkunden for an hour. You pick me out of a street crowd, follow me into an alley, and try to kill me. Why?”

“Y're smart, eh? See a lot, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Dontcha like it, eh? Dontcha like to fight, eh?”

“No.”

“Call a Keep, hunchback!” the thug sneered. “Maybe, I dunno, maybe I
oughta—” He raised his hand theatrically to his mouth and inhaled deeply, as if he were about to cry out.

Morlock's sword pressed harder against the thug's neck, just enough to break the skin. The shout never issued from the thug's mouth, but the thug sneered triumphantly. He'd made his point: Morlock, as an imperial outlaw, wanted to see the Keepers of the Peace—squads of imperial guards detailed to policing the streets—even less than this street punk with a dozen murders to his credit. (Morlock knew this from the cheek rings in the thug's face. The custom among the water gangs was one cheek ring per murder. Duels and fair fights did not count.)

“Ten days' law—that's what you got, eh?” the thug whispered. “Ten days to reach the border; then if they catch you inside it—zzccch! When'd your time run out, uh, was it twenny days ago? Thirty?”

“Two months.”

“Sure. Call a Keep, scut-face. By sunrise they'll have your head drying on a stake upside the Kund-Way Gate.”

“I won't be calling the Keepers of the Peace,” Morlock agreed. The crooked half-smile on his face was as cold as his ice-gray eyes. “What will I do instead?”

“You can't kill me, crooky-boy—” the thug began, with suddenly shrill bravado.

“I
can
kill you. But I won't. I'll cut your tendons and pull your cheek rings. I can sell the metal for drinking money at any bar in this town, as long as the story goes with it. And I'll make sure everyone knows where I last saw you.”

“There's a man; he wants to see you,” said the thug, giving in disgustedly.

“Dead?”

“Alive. But I figure: the Empire pays more for you dead than this guy will alive.”

“You're saying he's cheap.”

“Cheap? He's riding his horse, right, and you cross the road after him and step in his horse-scut. He's gonna send a greck after you to charge you for the fertilizer. You see me?”

“I see you.” Morlock briefly weighed his dangers against his needs. “Take me to this guy. I'll let you keep a cheek ring, and one tendon, maybe.”

“Evil scut-sucking bastard,” hissed the thug, unmistakably moved with gratitude.

“The guy's” house was a fortresslike palace of native blue-stone, not far inside the western wall of Sarkunden. Morlock and the limping thug were admitted through a heavy bronze door that swung down to make a narrow bridge across a dry moat. Bow slits lined the walls above the moat; through them Morlock saw the gleam of watching eyes.

“Nice place, eh?” the thug sneered.

“I like it.”

The thug hissed his disgust at the emblems of security and anyone who needed them.

They waited in an unfinished stone anteroom with three hard-faced guards until an inner door opened and a tall fair-haired man stepped through it. He glanced briefly in cold recognition at the thug, but his eyes lit up as they fell on Morlock.

“Ah! Welcome, sir. Welcome to my home. Do come in.”

“Money,” said the thug in a businesslike tone.

“You'll be paid by your gang leader. That was the agreement.”

“I better be,” said the thug flatly. He walked back across the bronze door-bridge, strutting to conceal his limp.

“Come in, do come in,” said the householder effusively. “People usually call me Charis.”

Morlock noted the careful phrasing and replied as precisely, “I am Morlock Ambrosius.”

“I know it, sir—I know it well. I wish I had the courage to do as you do. But few of those-who-know can afford to be known by their real names.”

Those-who-know
was a euphemism for practitioners of magic, especially solitary adepts. Morlock shrugged his crooked shoulders, dismissing the subject.

“I had a prevision you were coming to Sarkunden,” said the sorcerer who called himself Charis, “and—yes, thank you, Veskin, you may raise the bridge again—I wanted to consult with you on a matter I have in hand. I hope that gangster didn't hurt you, bringing you in—I see you are limping.”

“It's an old wound.”

“Ah. Well, I'm sorry I had to put the word out to the water gangs, but they cover the town so much more thoroughly than the Keepers of the Peace. Then there was the matter of your—er—status. I hope, by the way, you aren't worried about that fellow shopping you to the imperial forces?”

“No.”

Charis's narrow blond eyebrows arched slightly. “Your confidence is justified,” he admitted, “but I don't quite see its source.”

Morlock waved a hand. “This place—your house. No ordinary citizen would be allowed to have a fortress like this within the town's walls. You are not a member of the imperial family. So I guess you have a large chunk of the local guards in your pocket, and have had for at least ten years.”

Charis nodded. “Doubly astute. You've assessed the age of my house to the year, and you're aware of its political implications. Of course, you were in the Emperor's service fairly recently, weren't you?”

“Yes, but let's not dwell on it.”

Charis dwelled on it. Knotting his eyebrows theatrically, he said, “Let's see, what was it that persuaded him to exile you?”

“I had killed his worst enemy and secured his throne from an usurpation attempt.”

“Oh, my God. Well, there you are. I don't claim your own level of political astuteness, you understand, but if I had been there to advise you I would have said, ‘Don't do it!’ I never do anything for anybody that they can't repay, and I never allow anybody to do anything for me that I can't repay. Gratitude is painless enough in short bursts, but few people can stand it on a day-to-day basis.”

They ascended several flights of stairs, passing several groups of servants who greeted Charis with every appearance of cheerful respect. Finally they reached a tower room ringed with windows, with a fireplace in its center and two liveried pages in attendance. Charis seated Morlock in a comfortable chair and planted himself in its twin on the other side of the fireplace. He gestured negligently and the pages stood forward.

“May I offer you something?” Charis asked. “A glass of wine? The local grapes are particularly nasty, as you must know, but there's a vineyard in northern Kaen I've come to favor lately. I'd like your opinion on their work.”

“I'm not a vintner. Some water for me, thanks.”

This remark set Charis's eyebrows dancing again. “But surely…” he said, as the demure dark-eyed servant at his side handed him a glass-lined drinking cup.

“I don't drink when I'm working, and I gather you want me to do a job. What is it?”

Charis leaned back in his chair. “Let me begin to answer by asking a question: What do you think is the
most
remarkable thing about this remarkable house of mine?”

Morlock accepted a cup of water from a bold-eyed blond-haired page. He drank deeply as he mulled the question over, then replied, “I suppose the fact that all the servants are golems.”

The comment caught his host in midswallow. Morlock watched with real interest as Charis choked down his wine, his astonishment, and an obvious burst of irritation more or less simultaneously.

“May I ask how you knew that?” Charis said carefully, when he was free for speech.

“From the fact that all the servants we've met, including your guards, have been golems, I deduced that your entire staff consisted of golems.”

“Yes, but surely, sir, you understand the intent of my question: How did you
know
they were golems? For I think, sir, as a master in the arts of Making, you will admit they are excellent work—
extremely
lifelike.” Charis's frank and inquisitive look had something of a glare in it. Clearly he had made the golems himself and was vexed because they had not deceived Morlock.

“Mostly the eyes,” Morlock said. “The golems are well made, I grant you, and the life-scrolls must be remarkably complicated and various. But you can't quite get a natural effect with clay eyes.”

Charis turned his gaze from Morlock to the dark-haired modest page at his left hand. Morlock watched the struggle in his host's face as he realized the truth of the observation.

“What would you use?” Charis asked finally. “If I may be so bold.”

“Molten glass for the eyes proper—the eyeball and the cornea. I'd slice up some gems and use a fan-ring assembly for the irises. You're using black mirror-tube for the visual canals? I think that would work very well.”

“You can't use glass,” Charis said sharply, sitting on the edge of his chair. “I've tried it. The vivifying spell induces some flexibility in the material, but it's not sufficient.”

“It would be necessary to keep it molten until the vivifying spell is activated,” Morlock replied.

“It seems to me, frankly, that the problems are completely insuperable.”

“I can show you,” Morlock said indifferently.

“Frankly, you'll have to. That will have to be part of the deal. Frankly.”

“What deal are you offering?”

Charis leapt to his feet, walked impatiently all around the room, and threw himself back down in his chair. “You have me at a disadvantage,” he remarked. “As you no doubt intended.”

“We both have something the other needs.”

“Thank God! I thought for a moment—no matter what I thought. As you guessed: except for myself, all my household are golems. I do business every day in the city—a very large business in very small spells—and, frankly, when I come home I detest the human race. But I have the normal human desire for a sociable life.”

Morlock, who had none of these problems, inclined his head to acknowledge them. “And the golems are your solution.”

“A most effective one, by and large. Except that I will never be able to look one of the damned things in the eyes again!”

“That can be fixed,” Morlock pointed out. “Also, there must have been something else, or you wouldn't have been looking for me.”

“Yes. Yes. As you noticed, I've been at some pains to give each of my golems a distinctive character, physically and otherwise. A desert of a thousand identical faces and minds would hardly satisfy my social instincts.”

“No golem has a mind,” Morlock observed. “A limited set of responses can be incorporated into any life-scroll.”

“A difference that is no difference, sir. What does it matter to me whether they really have minds or not? If they
seem
to have minds, my social instincts will be satisfied.”

Morlock thought this unlikely, but did not say so. “Then?”

“The trouble is that, since
I
inscribed their life-scrolls, nothing they say
or do can ever surprise me. You see? The illusion that they have identities collapses. My social instincts are not satisfied. Frankly, it's dull.”

“Then. You would have me make a new set of lifelike golems, at least some of whose responses you will not expect.”

“In an unthreatening and even charming way. Play fair, now.”

“I can't undertake to provide charm,” Morlock said. “We can rule out danger, insubordination, and incivility.”

“Very well. I'm sure I can trust your esthetic instincts. Also, you must show me your method of constructing their eyes.”

Morlock nodded.

“The question arises, ‘What can I do for you?’ I take it that mere gold will not…? No.”