Aloe sighed and said, "All right, Jordel: if you didn"t come by for breakfast and you didn"t come by for my insights, what did you come by for?"
"Well, isn"t it obvious? We"ll have to send someone to keep an eye on the situation. Either Morlock and Ambrosia, or Merlin, or their antagonist may become a danger to the Wardlands. But we can"t send just anyone up against people like that."
"So you propose to send me."
"No one is proposing to send you, Aloe, but you might send yourself. No one can slip Morlock the needle like you can; your powers are sure; and, of course, there are those insights of yours."
"Are you going?"
"Yes. Even if the Graith doesn"t decide to send anyone, I think I"ll wander up that way; perhaps Baran would also like to come. Because I don"t like the look of it, Aloe-I don"t like the look of it or the feel of it. Neither do Noree and Illion. I"d be pleased if you"d come with. But I know it will be difficult for you if you do."
Aloe, in unfeigned distress, put both her hands over her face and held them there. When she dropped them the distress was gone, or at least under control. "I"ll come along," she said flatly. "If it"s as bad as you say, you"ll probably want my help. Should we put it to the a.s.sembled Graith or just set out on our own?"
So they began to lay their plans.
On that same early fall morning, far from the Wardlands, the King awoke at dawn. He didn"t ring for servants; soon he was washed and dressed and bustling up the corridor that held the ministerial apartments. He rang at Wyrtheorn"s door. When his first tug at the bellpull received no response, he yanked at it continuously until he was rewarded with an incoherent shout within. He opened the door to the apartment and said, "I was thinking about breakfast."
"A bad habit, but not one beyond breaking," remarked a nightcapwearing bearded shadow within. "The first step is acknowledging that you have a problem. Give it a try, and come back for me around noon."
"There"s a meeting of the Regency Council this morning, Wyrth, or had you forgotten?"
"So I had, so I had. When you"re my age you"ll wish you could forget unpleasant matters as easily as I can, if you remember me at all by then, that is. Let"s see-I suppose the sun will be rising soon?"
"It"s burning a hole through your shutters right now!"
"That seems unlikely. I made those shutters myself. Oh, well, you might call the corridor attendant and have him bring me some water for washing." He stumped off to find some garments in his wardrobe, and the King himself fetched a basin of water from the corridor pump. The dwarf was scandalized almost (but not quite) beyond words, and he gave his King a harsh lecture on propriety as he washed, gesturing wildly with a wet rag which, at various points in the diatribe, served as the royal scepter, the Rite-Master"s staff, the limp sword of a rather inept swashbuckler, or the pen of a scribe as he prepared to (not) write the unwritten laws of What Was Done and What Was Not Done. The King laughed more, perhaps, than the jokes deserved, because he was so fond of Wyrth. The dwarf was the one person to whom all the formalities and legalities of their situation seemed to mean exactly nothing. To Wyrth he was simply Lathmar, and this business of kings and empires was simply a tiresome game "the grown-ups" (as he often referred to Morlock and Ambrosia) had thought up.
The dwarf disappeared into his wardrobe to change, and as the King"s laughter subsided, he thought he heard a gentle rhythmic chanting. Presently Wyrth reappeared, clad in garments of decent gray with his hair and beard brushed.
"Let"s walk across and see if the master"s up," Wyrth said. They did, but Morlock"s apartments, directly across the corridor from Wyrth"s, were empty. "He"s up in the workshop, I guess. Let"s whomp up some food and bring it there; he"ll never eat, otherwise."
They clattered down to the kitchens, where Wyrth supervised the cooking of a large breakfast in the dwarvish style, although the cookswearing that to inflict "them hard-bowelled eggs an" nasty sossidge-pies" on the King was treason in the meaning of the act-insisted on adding some honeyed hotcakes and bacon to the platters. They drafted a fat, gentle, eternally complaining baker"s helper to carry the food to the tower chamber that served as Morlock"s workshop. The lock on the doorpost recognized them, acknowledged them with three separate blinks of the single gla.s.s eye in its comically ugly bronze face, and uncurled its strong iron fingers from the door, allowing them entrance.
"Praise the day, Master Morlock," shouted the dwarf, kicking open the door and entering the workshop with a platter in each hand. "Don"t junzp- we"ve brought food."
The Crooked Man was sitting cross-legged on the broad windowsill of one of the many windows in the chamber, showing no signs of jumping. But his eye sockets were bruised with weariness, and his eyes shot with blood-he hadn"t been sleeping well lately, Lathmar knew, though he didn"t know why.
"Harven, Wyrth. Good morning, Lathmar. There"s tea made."
"Hmph. I suppose you think you"ve done your part, then ... while me and Lathmar have been down in the kitchen since before dawn, slaving our fingers to the bone over a hot cook-"
Wyrth raved on as he unstacked plates and served out tea and sausage tarts. The King promptly returned the sausage tarts.
"That"s more for us," said Wyrth cheerfully, while still managing to imply that His Majesty had breached the unwritten laws of What Was Done and What Was Not Done.
Morlock silently collected his sausage tarts onto a separate plate and walked over to a nearby worktable. There he put aside some wrappings made of some sort of scaly hide and revealed a nexus of dark branching crystal, aswarm with live flames.
"We"re hungry!" they moaned, in sharp bright voices.
"Are they alive?" the King asked, astonished.
"All flames are alive," Wyrth said. "That"s why they can be seen during a vision-you should know more about that than I do, Lathmar. But most of them don"t live long enough to develop their intelligence. (Which, in your ear, is modest at best. They pun-abominably, I might add.) The nexus extends their lifetime indefinitely."
"Why does he have them?" Lathmar whispered. "Are they pets?"
"I sometimes think so," Wyrth said in his normal speaking voice. "But they"re useful, too. A choir of wise old flames is very useful in cultivating gemstones, and some other things."
"Why doesn"t he feed them?"
"That"s just noise. I gave them several fistfuls of wet charcoal last night, and I expect Morlock did the same this morning-you can see it glowing, there, in the center of the nexus."
Morlock was holding the plate near to the nexus. "I know what you mean about being hungry," he remarked to the flames. "I was just about to enjoy a delicious sausage tart for breakfast."
Silence in the choir. "Sausage tart, eh?" said one voice appraisingly. "What are they made of?"
"Cornmeal. Pig fat. Pig intestine. Pig muscle. Everything but the squeal, as they say. And a selection of secret herbs and spices."
"I hate herbs!" one bright voice screamed. "Spices are okay, I guess."
"And herbs, too," another voice added. "The proper selection of herbs really lends a pleasant savor to pig fat, or all the culinary authorities are snecked."
"No herbs! No herbs! No herbs!"
"They"re secret herbs, see? If you had any discretion you wouldn"t even acknowledge their existence."
"I"m about to secrete an herb on you, pal. And then ... And then ..."
"Yes?"
"You won"t even acknowledge your own existence."
A shower of sparky derision greeted this inept comeback. A flame war seemed imminent when Morlock intervened by remarking, "Then I take it you have no interest in a sausage tart for breakfast?"
Almost as one, a choir of bright voices told him how wrong he was.
"Then." Morlock dropped a sausage tart into the nexus.
There was a brief moment of silence as the choir dug into the moist sausage tart. Then the nexus began to emit slumbrous smoky groans of delight. As the tart faded into coals and ash and memory, the appreciation became more verbal.
"Mmm. A fine texture in this crust-I can sense each individual granule of cornmeal. If only I liked cornmeal."
"Hey! I remember germinating!"
"I remember how hot it was when the farmer cut our stalks."
"That"s nothing. I remember wallowing in the mud. Oink! Oink!"
"I remember the delicious swill."
"I remember-hey, what is this I"m remembering?"
"Get your mind out of the gutter, kid. At least we know our pig lived a happy life."
"Oh, I"m squamous with the herbulent smoke of despair! It really does go well with pig fat, though."
"Everything but the squeal, eh?" one voice giggled. "I"d squeally like some more. Get it? I"d squeally like some more. Did you get that? It"s a sort of joke, but I really mean it. Squeally, 1 mean."
Morlock dropped the second sausage tart into the nexus and covered it up with the scaly wrappings while the flames were still groaning in smoky ecstasy.
Returning to the table he remarked, "Finally, a practical use for sausage tarts."
"And you call yourself a Theorn," the apprentice said scornfully to his master.
"Wyrth," said Morlock composedly, as he seated himself, "I ate those things nearly every day for twenty years at my father"s table. Now I am master of my own shop and I need not and will not."
"Your father?" the King asked. "I thought you were fostered by the dwarves."
"I meant my foster father," Morlock explained. "We do not consider the relationship temporary, though. I am still harven coruthen-chosen-not-given as kin-in the Deep Halls of the Seven Clans under Thrymhaiam. Although I can never come there now." His dark face grew darker.
"Have an egg," Wyrth suggested anxiously to the King. "Or even twoone for each cheek, eh?"
Lathmar accepted an egg, but before biting into it asked, "But it was not the dwarves that exiled you?"
"No," Morlock said flatly. "When I grew to manhood I became a member of the Graith of Guardians, like my father before me-my other father, ruthen coharven-Merlin. And it was they who exiled me, as they earlier did to him."
"Why?"
"He-"
"I meant you."
"Among other things, I killed a fellow Guardian."
"Oh." The King thought about what Ambrosia had said about Morlock"s exile. "Why?"
"I had my reasons."
Wyrth was about to say something, but Morlock held out one hand. His eyes were like gray lightning as he glared at his apprentice. Lathmar had never seen him so angry, not since-not since he had asked the question about the Sunkillers, more than two years ago.
Lathmar found that Morlock"s anger did not frighten him anymore, nor, obviously, was Wyrth intimidated by it. They held their silence, though.
It was Morlock who was troubled by his anger. He got up from the table and limped over to the window and back. He stood across the table from Wyrth and shouted, "Don"t make me into a hero! I"m not a hero! I am a master of the Two Arts-Seeing and Making. It is enough. It is all that I am."
"No," said Wyrth quietly.
"I say it is," Morlock replied, as quietly but more dangerously.
"Rosh takna. Morlocktheorn, when you, as a master of Making, tell me that a seedstone is to be inscripted in a certain way, it is up to me to accept what you have said and strive to understand it. When you, as a man, a.s.sert that you have twelve noses, it is up to me-as your apprentice, your harven- kin, and your friend-to correct that error. No one, not even you, can be merely the sum of their abilities. I don"t know why you should be ashamed of your very occasional heroisms. It was no coward, at any rate, who slew the Red Knight at Gravesend Field."
"No one slew the Red Knight. There never was such a person. Your example is especially inapt. It was the maker who recognized the presence of a golem on Gravesend Field and took steps to sever its name-scroll."
"I never knew the life of pure reason could be so adventurous! I suppose our people, the Seven Clans under Thrymhaiam, awarded you the name "Dragonkiller" because you framed some especially trenchant syllogism? The slaying of Saijok Mahr-that, I suppose, was some deplorable accident, perhaps a fall from a height?"
"That was different," Morlock said sharply. "The dragons came against us. It was life or death, not only for the dwarves, but for all the peoples of the north."
"I don"t know what you mean by "different." I"m not accusing you of being some folly-driven thrillseeker. Nor am I accusing you of being perfect-Sustainer Almighty, I know better than that. It was me, remember, who dragged you out of that tavern in Venche, weeping and vomiting. It was me who knocked you cold rather than listen to you whine for another drink. It was me you nearly strangled the next morning, trying to force your way past me to get one. If I say that you are a bad-tempered evil old childish b.a.s.t.a.r.d of an egomaniac-and you are-it"s because I have occasion to know it. If I say that, occasionally, you show admirable qualities that have nothing to do with your superb technical skills, I have the same authority."
"I"m not evil," Morlock disputed, "nor admirable. Harven, shall we end this quarrel?"
"Why not? I"m not responsible for what you are. You"re not responsible for what I think about it."
"Hmph. I, however, am responsible for what you are. At least as regards your superb technical skills."
"Ur. This sounds bad. I suppose that seedstone didn"t bloom properly."
"No. There were too many continuous lines in the matrix, I think. In the time before the council meeting, I"m going to set you a problem in spatial representation of motion in a time continuum. Lathmar, you may listen in, if you wish."
Lathmar didn"t. Grabbing a last egg, he waved good-bye to the makers and wandered off to find his Grandmother.
Karn was waiting anxiously outside the King"s apartments when Lathmar pa.s.sed by. Lathmar had asked Ambrosia to appoint Karn as his personal guard within Ambrose. He couldn"t help being fond of Karn (for Lorn"s sake, perhaps), although he had reason to suppose Karn wasn"t very reliable. But then, it wasn"t very likely to be dangerous in Ambrose.
"Your Majesty!" Karn cried, coming to attention.
"At ease, Karn," His Majesty said.
"I was worried when I didn"t find you in, Your Majesty," Karn said earnestly.
"I was up in Morlock"s tower," Lathmar replied. "You should get up earlier, Karn."
"I woke before dawn, Your Majesty. But I had to have breakfast."
"Well, I"ve had mine. Have you seen my Grandmother this morning?"
"I have not seen Her Ferocity this morning, Your Majesty," Karn said solemnly. He did not share, at least apparently, Lorn"s distaste for the Ambrosii, and he was always making up new t.i.tles of honor for the regent (safely out of her earshot, of course). Lathmar"s favorite, coined after an especially and unnecessarily (it seemed to the King) fractious meeting of the Regency Council, was "Her Bickeritudinery."
"Let"s go track her down, then."
They found the Regent, Ambrosia Viviana, inspecting the new bridge from Ambrose to the City Gate.
The last two years had been busy indeed. The Protector"s forces had instantly put Ambrose under siege. At first they were commanded (publicly, at least) by Vost. But soon the uneasy Protector"s Men were soothed by the sight of Urdhven himself (or itself-the King could no longer think of his uncle as a human being). He was, Genjandro reported through crow-post, sporting new scars on his neck and wrist. These, it was given out, had been acquired in the fight with the dragon. This satisfied some of the Protector"s Men; others, who knew or had heard a truer version of the fight in the Great Market, quietly deserted.
At first, the Protector"s forces had attempted to keep Ambrose entirely under siege. But this soon proved impossible. Ambrose was designed to be siege-proof: even if all three outer gates were taken (as they were, in the first success of the Protector"s counterattack), the bridges could be broken (as they were-the King shuddered when he remembered the breaking of the City Gate bridge) and traffic could pa.s.s into and out of Ambrose by the river Tilion. It would take a large force indeed to cover that great river on both banks for its entire navigable length.
Naval a.s.sault was the only solution, and Urdhven soon tried it, sending tall ships (mounted with siege towers and crammed with men) up the river Tilion from the harbor. These went down in flames before Morlock"s Siegebreaker, a catapult that hurled burning phlogiston-imbued stones for an almost incredible distance. The same device could have reduced half the imperial city to smoking rubble, but did not-a fact which was widely commented on in Ontil, according to messages they received from Genjandro.
The Protector soon had a manpower problem. His recruitment could not keep up with his desertions (Protector"s Men had always been opportunists, and following the Protector was no longer so obviously a path to opportunity), and he needed more men than ever. Eventually, he pulled his men out of the Thorngate and the Lonegate, maintaining a garrison only at the City Gate.
The bridges from Ambrose to the Lonegate and the Thorngate were rebuilt by the King"s forces, and each were garrisoned by hundreds of the new Royal Legionaries. The Ambrosian forces, at any rate, had no manpower problem-or rather, theirs was the reverse of the Protector"s. They could not welcome into Ambrose everyone who wished to defect from the Protectorthere simply was not enough food, water, or s.p.a.ce. Members of the old City Legion were generally welcomed (if someone already in the Royal Legion would vouch for them); Protector"s Men were pardoned of treason, but rejected from the King"s service. Ordinary people of the city or country were told to return to their homes, obey the laws, and await the King"s justice.