"That"s nothing. Wait "till you hear what he-"
The three were trudging among the Dead Hills surrounding the Old City. Wyrth was leading the black charger (which Morlock called by the barbarous name Velox), and when he expressed his overflowing emotions (as he frequently did) by some vigorous gesture, the horse tended to shy away. Wyrth had underlined his fresh accusation of Morlock with a great wave of the hand, and now Velox positively bolted. Wyrtheorn lost hold of the reins and had to chase the horse down, which he did with inexpert enthusiasm.
"Wyrth"s in as good a mood as I"ve ever seen," Ambrosia remarked, as the sounds of his shouting at the horse wafted back to them.
"I think he had little hope of success today," her brother remarked.
"Had you?"
Morlock grunted and sat down abruptly on a nearby rock. "Yes. More than the occasion merited. It was a near thing. Help me out of this hardware, Ambrosia."
"I can"t." She explained to him about her hands. His face grew grim.
"I"m sorry," he said. "We"d better wait until Wyrtheorn returns; I can do you little good in these mailed gloves."
Wyrth finally did return with horse in tow. "I figured it out," he said, addressing Ambrosia. "He was unable to locate a horse and, being pressed for time, found an unusually tall sheep, shaved it raw, and painted it black. So I-"
"Get me out of this armor, Wyrtheorn."
"Hm. I fear that Master Morlock"s customary keenness of wit has been blunted by repeated blows to the head."
"If that"s the remedy, I ask only that you come within arm"s reach."
"Physical comedy can never make up for lack of true humor, Master Morlock," the dwarf reproved him, pointedly approaching from behind. "Lady Ambrosia, if you"ll grab these-"
"They broke her hands."
"Not taking a single chance, were they? I beg your pardon, madam-I heard some such rumor while I was milling about in the crowd. The combat drove it from my mind, though. Can you step on these reins or something?"
Ambrosia nickered softly, spoke Velox"s name, and the black charger came to stand quietly beside her.
"Hmph," said the dwarf. "Then while I-"
"You seemed to be enjoying yourself so much."
"Never mind." He set to unbuckling Morlock"s armor. "I"d see to your wrists myself," he said to Ambrosia, "but Morlock is a better healer than I am, if you can believe it."
Ambrosia expressed polite disbelief.
"You may well say so, but it"s true. No doubt due to the practice he"s had, bandaging up his own head lo these many centuries-Hurs krakna!" he muttered in dismay.
Ambrosia looked at the stretch of Morlock"s shoulder Wyrth had just exposed. Repeated blows had shattered the chain mail, driving it through the dark cloth padding so that links of mail, like fish scales, were driven into Morlock"s flesh. The shoulder was dark with dried blood where it was not gleaming with fresh. "Ugly," she agreed.
"I had hoped it might not be so bad. I had really begun to hope, when I saw him snoring there on the field. Look at him, Lady Ambrosia, he"s sleeping again."
"He"s in a bad way. I"ve cost you both much, this day. I owe you more."
"Nonsense." Wyrth shook his head. "Blood has no price." He worked in silence for a while, stripping the shattered armor from his master"s body and then laying him gently on the ground. He threw aside the blood-crusted rags that Morlock had been wearing under the mail and covered him with his own cloak. This left Morlock"s legs bare, so Wyrth fetched the rags back to cover them.
"I"ll have to be your healer after all, my lady," the dwarf said. "I"m no herbalist, but I can at least bind your hands and splint your wrists."
"You needn"t bother, Wyrth. If I get back to the city before dark I can consult somebody."
Wyrtheorn blinked and glanced at Morlock. "I doubt Morlock will be able to travel before nightfall-"
"I don"t expect you to travel with me. You"ve done enough already, both of you."
"Er. We, uh, we rather expected you to travel with us. And not to the city. Morlock thinks-"
"To the city I go, Wyrth. I can"t leave little Lathmar to the Protector"s mercy."
"Lathmar?"
"The King."
"Oh!" Wyrtheorn rubbed his nose thoughtfully. "Not a bad little fellow. But you have to consider him as good as dead, you know. Revenge is what you owe him, not protection. Now, Morlock thinks-"
"Urdhven wouldn"t dare kill him as long as I"m alive," Ambrosia said with a knowing air.
"Oh, yes he would. In fact, he doesn"t dare do anything else."
Ambrosia frowned.
"Hear me out, madam. If I understand the law of the Second Empire, you may not claim the throne."
"Correct. I"m not a descendant of the ancient Vraidish kings."
"Then."
Ambrosia stared at him, waiting.
"If the Protector arranges for the King to die," Wyrth said finally, "there is no legitimate claimant for the throne. That makes the Protector as legitimate as any. And he is the man on the spot, with an army loyal to him controlling the capital."
"The people would never stand for it."
"Eh, my lady, what do the people ever have to say about such things?"
"They are my people, Wyrtheorn. No one knows them better than I do. And I tell you they will pull the palace Ambrose down around the Protector"s ears if he harms the King. I am one thing-I"m not Vraidish, and moreover am supposed to look out for myself. The King is different. He is truly honored in the city."
"Then why do you fear for him?"
Ambrosia was silent.
"You see, my lady, everything you say simply underlines the desperation of the Protector"s position. And desperate men prefer savage measures: it gives release to their emotions. And, Lady Ambrosia, I spent all yesterday at the Great Market, scrounging for gossip. There was more sympathy for yourself than you have supposed, and less feeling for the King than you imagine. People are weary of weak and troubled reigns. They say the Ambrosian line has run its course; they are looking for a leader. They"ll never love Urdhven, but if he proves himself the strongest they"ll follow him sure."
Ambrosia became restless with this a.n.a.lysis. "Then best I be back at the city as soon as can be. Tell my brother-"
"No, my lady, wait. Morlock can counsel you better than I. I always see the debt side of a ledger."
"And Morlock is an optimist?"
"Morlock sees a way," the dwarf replies. "Always. Please wait till he awakes."
"I can"t wait, Wyrth. If-"
The unconscious form lifted its hand. It drew a long, shuddering breath. "Wait!" it rasped, in a voice unlike Morlock"s.
"I hate this," the dwarf complained. "When he speaks in a vision he hardly sounds like himself. I could almost believe another spirit has possession of him."
"Don"t be superst.i.tious, Wyrth. Morlock, I can"t wait. Speak to me what you see."
Voice rasping, eyes closed, Morlock said, "The death in the Protector"s Shadow sleeps and, sleeping, dreams.
"The death the Protector fears wears our faces like masks.
"The death to ease the Protector"s pain wears our name, like gravestones.
"The wing rides over the plain."
"Shake him out of it," the dwarf said impatiently. "What does that mean, the wing rides over the plain"?"
"The wing enters the hills-"
"Canyon keep the wing. Wake up, Morlock!"
"He is waking," Ambrosia said. "Be quiet, Wyrth, you can"t hurry him. "The flight must take its course," as seers say."
"No," said Morlock, in a voice almost his own. "Wrong."
"What"s wrong?" Ambrosia asked.
"Wing. Not flight. Shoes."
"A wing with feet?" Wyrth demanded.
Morlock looked puzzled, like a sleeper with a perplexing dream. "No feet. Shoes."
"Oh, that"s plain. A wing with shoes, but no feet."
"Not plain," Morlock insisted. "Hills."
Ambrosia looked speculatively at her brother, then said to Wyrth, "I"ll be back in a moment." She climbed a nearby hill and looked westward. After a moment she turned and came down again. She called to the horse and then said to Wyrtheorn, "Pick up my brother and carry him. We must be going."
"I don"t understand."
"Wyrtheorn, what sort of wing rides rather than flies and has shoes but not feet?"
The dwarf glared at her. It was Morlock who answered, ascending (or descending) finally to full wakefulness.
"A cavalry wing," said the Crooked Man, "and almost upon us." He sat up. "Wyrtheorn, where are my clothes?"
Thousands of heartbeats later Wyrtheorn still had not gotten over it. "Wyrtheorn," he intoned to himself, "where are my slippers, where are my b.u.t.tered biscuits, where my evening tea?"
Morlock, who was wearing the dirty, rusty, torn, b.l.o.o.d.y black rags that Wyrth had been prepared to discard, did not respond.
"Wyrtheorn," Wyrtheorn intoned, "bring me my rags."
"Shut up, Wyrth," Ambrosia said irritably. "They"ll track us down by your whining alone."
"They won"t track us at all," Wyrth rejoined. "They"ll quarter the area and search. They"re cavalry, not hunters. They"ll find us, all right, but in their own good time."
"Can"t you make your prentice be quiet?" Ambrosia asked her brother.
Morlock smiled. "No."
"Hmph," Wyrth said, to keep the conversation going. "Listen to this: I say we let the horse go."
The Ambrosii said nothing. The expression of pain sternly repressed was stamped on both their faces, bringing out the most fugitive likenesses. If it were possible Wyrth would have made them both be still and take some healing. Since it was not, he was determined to distract them.
"No, really," he said, as if they had answered him. "It-"
"We need the horse, Wyrtheorn," Morlock cut him off.
They proceeded through a silence punctuated by Wyrth"s wisecracks. The sun was gone behind the dusty gray hills to the east, but its light was still in the sky and its heat was still in the dead valleys.
"Here," said Morlock.
Wyrtheorn looked around.
"There." Morlock scuffed a mark in the crumbling gray earth.
"Get away; I"ll do it," the dwarf said irritably.
Morlock did not argue, but sat on a slope a few feet away. "Dig a square perhaps as long as my arm."
"Which arm?" the dwarf retorted, digging rapidly in the dry earth with his hard blunt fingers. It was not long before he laid bare a crystalline blade, blazing with white light. There were darker thornlike shapes within the light. Beneath the sword was a large pack made of dark canvas. Between pack and sword two small boxes made of translucent shining metal.
"What is that?" the dwarf said, pointing at the boxes.
"Aethrium," Morlock replied.
"And inside them?"
"Phlogiston."
"From ..."
"I dephlogistonated the armor I fashioned, and most of the metal in the smith"s shop."