"A little bird told you?" remarked Genjandro"s mouth. "You can"t even trust birds these days, I guess. No, I found it possible to eat Genjandro in the end, just as I shall eat each one of you. Isn"t that an amusing thought?"
Lathmar could see from Ambrosia"s face that she didn"t find it amusing-but that she feared it might be true.
Morlock clambered as rapidly as possible over the railing onto the balcony of the adept"s tower chamber. If he had been the adept, he would have been waiting there with a blunt object to solve his Morlock problem once and for all. But there was no one present that he could see.
Near the window entrance was a sorcerer"s worktable, and standing upright atop it was a strip of some translucent, irregularly glowing substance. As Morlock glanced at it he saw faces rising from the base of the strip, twisting and changing color as they pa.s.sed up its length, then contracting and darkening at the top and sinking to the bottom again. Perhaps it was meant to be a lamp-there was no other light source than the window in the dim room-but it was very dim and irregular. On the other hand, it radiated power; most likely it was some sort of experiment or spell left here by the adept to run its course.
His fear that the adept was not present at all recurred to him. But, Morlock reminded himself, the adept didn"t have to be here for Morlock to kill him. He saw the stairway leading to the lower chamber and leapt down it.
The lower chamber was darker; there was no window to light it. The air was thick down there, too; the whole place was redolent of rotting flesh. But the vats the King had described were there, glowing faintly by their own light.
Morlock heard a snuffling sound in the far end of the chamber. He drew Tyrfing and stepped toward it. He had not gone far when he saw its source. It was like an unfinished sketch for a body-no head, no hands or feet. From the way it flopped when it moved it seemed to have no bones. It snuffled and crept in a mindless circle around a vat containing human innards that breathed and pulsed and twitched with life.
Staring at it (the striations on its dark red surface were oddly like muscle tissue), Morlock thought suddenly of Urdhven. Was this formless form some fraction of his body, not superficial enough to be included in his walking self, not vital enough to be placed in the vat? And here it was, whuffling about in the hopeless hunger of being restored to its organs?
Morlock summoned the rapture of vision. It partly confirmed his guess: there were dim tal-lines connecting the misshapen shape with the organs within the vat. Other tal-lines stretched across the floor and up the stairs, out of sight. Going to carry life and sustenance from the vitals to Urdhven"s walking sh.e.l.l?
He turned away. There were only two vats with organs in them; he guessed the other contained the organs of the adept"s central body nexus.
These, too, were rippling with life. But no tal-lines extended from them that Morlock could see. Were they mere illusions? Morlock"s insight said they weren"t. He gazed at them, with his inner and outer vision, as they pulsed flaccidly on a surface that looked like the bare rock of the tower. He felt he was missing something.
He lifted his sword to strike. Like Lathmar, he felt that he would not have been allowed to come here if there was any chance of his breaking through the vat. But unlike Lathmar, he was armed with Tyrfing: it was worth attempting. The accursed blade, blazing with the black-and-white pattern of his tal, fell upon the unreflective transparent surface covering the vat ... and bounced. He struck another time, and a third, with even greater force and less hope. The effect was the same.
Morlock shrugged his crooked shoulders. No tree falls at the first chop. Perhaps, he thought, the inner surface of the vat was what it appeared to bethe bare rock of the tower. He decided he would try to turn the thing over when he heard a soft, shuffling footstep behind him.
He turned to find Steng stabbing at him with a dagger in his long, ropy fingers. No-not Steng: the adept. He avoided the dagger and punched the other in the face with his hand that held Tyrfing; the quarters were too close to use the blade itself. The adept"s rotten nose squelched and tore under the impact of his fist.
Morlock contained his reflexive utterance of disgust, but when he saw the other stagger back to the stairway and stand there, he switched the sword to his left hand and wiped the fluid and fragments from his right hand onto his cloak.
"Well, I thought I"d try," the adept said apologetically, what was left of his nose dangling from his gray face. "Your vital organs are still conveniently located in your body, you know."
Morlock didn"t answer this, but focused his inner and his outer vision on the adept. A dense cloud of spider-thin talic strands extended from the adept"s body up the stairwell, as if the body were a marionette controlled by thousands of invisible strings. But the strings were woven into the talic imprint that rested on the body, and every time the adept spoke they sang in dissonant harmony, a soft cacophony of other voices calling out in pain. These were the strings controlling puppets, perhaps, but here was the puppeteer.
Why did the talic emanations of control go up the stairwell? The stones of the tower, as mere matter, should have been transparent to them.
"You"re very rude," the adept said coldly. "Speak when you"re spoken to-that"s what my dear d.a.m.ned mother always used to say."
Morlock shrugged. He had come here with a single purpose, to commit the ultimate incivility. Besides, he didn"t believe the adept was making civil conversation.
One of the talic emanations of control did not go up the stairwell, but toward the far vat.
The adept, who must have been in something like the visionary state continuously, noticed that Morlock noticed it. His gray mouth smiled, and the talic thread twitched, whispering in Urdhven"s voice.
"Yes, you must have guessed-those are the living remains of the late Protector, the fellow whose shadow you so unflatteringly called me. He was so grateful to me when I cored him! It burned bright within him. He never understood, even at the end as I consumed him, that that was when I first began to devour his soul. Now he knows, of course. I keep that shred of him nearby as a sort of pet: I look at it sometimes, and think of what I did to him, and he reacts, and it"s terribly amusing. Terrible for him, amusing for me. And that thing, the shred of him, it wants nothing but to be reunited with its innards, and of course it can"t be-they"re forever inaccessible. But it would take others, if it could get them. If there were other, unprotected organs in the room ..
Morlock turned and spitted at the headless, boneless shape as it leapt upon him. The adept laughed, and the laugh sounded closer, as if he might be approaching with the dagger while Morlock was occupied.
Morlock reached out with his talic awareness and snapped the talic threads emanating toward the blanket of muscle and nerve, the shreds of the soul-dead Protector. They quivered and went limp. Morlock shook them off and spun around, his sword at the guard.
The adept shuffled backward to the stone stairs. "d.a.m.n it, you sicken me," he hissed.
"I frighten you, evidently," the Crooked Man replied.
"It would take more than you to frighten me," the adept sneered, his gray lips twisting behind his dangling nose. "Your sister is more formidable than you are, and I"m eating her even as we speak."
"Then she frightens you."
"Nothing frightens me."
"You should look up "formidable" in a lexicon some time."
"I-" The adept paused. "You"re trying to get at me!"
Morlock was buying time, in fact. There was something here that didn"t make sense, something he might be able to sort out if he could think about it for a moment or two. He shrugged.
The adept started to say something, paused, then fled up the stairway, his robe trailing along the stairs with an odd sucking sound.
Morlock followed him up the stairs with cautious speed. It was promising that the adept was retreating, but of course there was some reason he felt safer upstairs.
The upper chamber was nearly as dark as the lower one. This was partly because the sky outside had gotten darker and cloudier since he descended. But it was largely because on the balcony was standing a gigantic gargoyle with outspread wings, a hammer in its left hand.
"Kill him!" the adept"s voice sounded, from the darker end of the room. "Kill him and I"ll release you; I swear it by the terms of our contract."
Morlock turned toward the gargoyle. With his inner vision he saw that it was a harthrang, a demon united to a body. But not a dead one: pretalic potential surged through the body like spicules of light interwoven with the darker flame of the demon"s self.
Why did the adept want a demon who could feel pain? So that he could punish it, Morlock guessed: harthrangs could be stubborn and willful servants.
The gargoyle"s body-st.i.tched together from many different forms, human and animal, while still alive-was itself a horrific wonder of making. But Morlock could not hesitate to destroy it: he was caught between two enemies.
He leapt toward the gargoyle, knowing what he must do, hoping he had the time to do it. Beyond its gray wings, in the gray sky, lightning blinked its bright silver eyes and muttered.
Lathmar didn"t like the bemused expression on Grandmother"s face. It looked almost as if she were sinking into despair, and there was no point in that, no matter how desperate the situation was.
"Grandmother, he"s lying!" shouted the Emperor, and he threw his dagger at Genjandro"s face. The knife glanced off; the gray cheek opened, and dark blood seeped out. The cold features twisted in annoyance.
"That body is dead," Jordel said firmly. "If I understand how this thing works, he"s lying about having eaten Alkhendron."
Ambrosia was nodding. But her expression didn"t change, and Genjandro"s dead voice continued to speak to her. "They don"t understand," it said insinuatingly, "but I understand. They don"t know what it"s like to be lost in yourself-to be ruled by the will of another-of the horrible darkness you dwell in when your sister governs your body. If you explained to them, if you told them in so many words, they still wouldn"t understand. But I understand, without you saying a word. You know what I"m offering to you, and you know that I can give it to you, and you know that you are going to accept it. While there"s life, there"s Hope. No life, no hope. No Hope, no life. I can free you from her, if you let me in."
"What the chaos is he talking about?" Jordel asked with mild interest.
"Hope is dead," Aloe said tensely. "I saw her die, centuries ago."
"I never knew her, madam," said Wyrth glumly. "But I think she"s alive."
Ambrosia was wavering. Lathmar could see it. He started to go to her when iron-hard hands gripped his shoulders. "Erl!" he shouted. "Let me help her!"
"Majesty, I"m sorry," said Erl"s flat voice. "But no one can help her. I think this was the hour she spoke of."
"No!" shouted the Emperor as they dragged him away.
"Hope," said Ambrosia thickly, as if drugged. "Hope." The light in her pendant seemed to be fading.
"While there"s life, there"s hope," whispered Genjandro"s mouth. "There"s always Hope. There"s no escape from Hope. But I can give you escape. What else have you ever wanted? You"ve never really wanted anything else but to be free-free of her-yourself at least, at last, without Hope-"
"Hope!" shrieked Ambrosia. "Help! Hope! Help!" The pendant on her chest went dark, and she fell to the floor as if she"d been clubbed. The whispering in their minds crested in a wave that threatened to drown their thoughts.
Genjandro"s body stepped out of the stairwell. "The strongest of you is gone," his dead voice said. "If-"
Ambrosia rose again behind him. Except: it wasn"t her. It was a shorter woman, fairer, stockier, with blue eyes. She grabbed Genjandro"s shoulders and pulled him backward. She threw her leg out behind the undead body and tumbled it down the stairs.
Wincing, she loosened the fastenings on Ambrosia"s armor and looked around the room. "Aloe. Lathmar. Deor. I"m sorry I don"t know you other gentlemen."
"You don"t know me either, madam," Wyrth said respectfully. "But I"m honored to be taken for my father."
"Oh, you"re Wyrth, of course-stupid of me. Ambrosia thinks of you often."
Genjandro"s dead body came charging up the stairs, and there were corpse-golems shuffling behind it. Hope drew Ambrosia"s sword and blocked the way. "I can stop him this way," she called over her shoulder, looking directly at Lathmar. "But I can"t stop the whispering. I don"t have the skills."
Was it an accident that she looked at him? the Emperor wondered stupidly. If Ambrosia failed, how could he succeed?
Then fail like she failed, he told himself. Do half as well!
"Erl," he said to his senior bodyguard (for Karn was wild-eyed with terror), "I must pa.s.s into the vision state. I will have to surrender volitional action in the world of the senses. Do you understand, Erl? You will need to stand guard over me."
Aloe turned her dark face, fierce with hope, toward him. "Champion Lathmar!" she shouted. "Jordel, you"re for me."
"Always, my dear, if I understand you properly."
Lathmar was already ascending into the vision state. The cloak of matter and energy fell away. He found himself standing over his body.
Emerging from the shadowy hole of the stairway was the adept"s avatar, a dark tower pierced through with myriad whispering shadows.
Lathmar leapt toward the enemy-willing himself against the other. He stretched out his hands (like nets of radiant silver wire) against the screaming shadows of the enemy. He entered the mind of the destroyer.
Of course it was too strong for him. He knew the other would break him down in the end-it began almost immediately. But he fought, as fiercely as he could, pouring out rejection for the other, and he felt the relief of the others behind him.
Aloe was beside him then, a bright danger like the edge of a bronze sword. She too struck at the enemy with her talic presence, and it eased Lathmar"s burden somewhat. He felt he could fight longer now.
If there was a way to tell the pa.s.sing of time in the vision state Lathmar didn"t know it. After a timeless moment he sensed that the bodies in the room had moved, like chess pieces. Only in the end of a chess game there were fewer pieces on the board; now there were more, many more. Bodies without the talic imprint of souls, the empty presence of corpse-golems.
Perhaps now was the end. But how long was now? He fought on.
They were deep within the labyrinthine corridors of the enemy"s mind, striking at whatever they saw. They looked out through thousands of eyes, a bewildering cacophoty of images.
Look! The command pa.s.sed directly from Aloe"s awareness to Lathmar"s. He looked.
He saw Morlock fighting in the adept"s chamber, Tyrfing in his hand alive with talic light.
The sky outside was full of bright darkness. There was a mind in the sky, preparing to think bright deadly thoughts....
Lightning! Lathmar cried. He"s going to use lightning against him!
From Aloe, a sad agreement.
Her sadness puzzled Lathmar. He would never forget how Morlock had used lightning against the Companions on the bridge. Surely it would work as well against the Companions" master?
Then he realized: they weren"t in rapport with Morlock"s vision. They were in rapport with the adept. It was Morlock who would suffer the blast of the lightning this time.
They struck out as fiercely as they could, to distract the adept, to disrupt his spell. But it was no use. As they fought on, the lightning fell, dazzling the adept"s delighted eyes.
Morlock, as he ran, raised Tyrfing against the gigantic war hammer of the gargoyle. With his left hand he grabbed the last jar of phlogiston, snapping with his thumb and forefinger the string that held it across his shoulder.
"Leave and I won"t hurt you," he said to the gargoyle.
The gargoyle stared at him with lightless black eyes and said nothing. Morlock sensed that it feared the adept more than it feared him. But it held the hammer at guard and thrust with it: clearly the gargoyle didn"t want to leave itself open to attack by swinging the hammer over its shoulder for a killing blow.
Morlock parried the shaft of the hammer as if it were a blade and dodged within arm-reach of the gargoyle. It was risky, but he had no choice. The thing was reaching for him with its empty right hand. Morlock didn"t doubt it could kill him with that alone. He cracked open the jar of phlogiston and held the sheet of flame under the gargoyle"s left wing.
The gargoyle shrieked and struck him down. He hit the floor rolling and sprang to his feet. The adept, who had shuffled nearer, lifting the dagger hopefully, shuffled away, a cheated expression on his gray rotting features.
The burning gargoyle was dancing and shrieking with pain on the balcony. Morlock dropped the empty jar and picked up a nearby table, throwing it at the gargoyle. It saw the table coming and raised its hands quickly to protect its unlovely face. It overbalanced and fell over the edge, its fading shriek stopping short with the meaty thump of impact.
"Any more gargoyles?" Morlock said coolly.
"No-that was the last," the adept said. "It was useless to me anywayit takes two of them to open the door, here, so we"re both trapped. Isn"t that amusing? I didn"t antic.i.p.ate you would or could climb the outer wall, and I was sure my first gargoyle would take care of you when I saw you creeping along out there."
Morlock reflected that the halls and stairwell of the tower must be packed with the adept"s undead soldiery, and that enough hands and a few levers would move a stone far heavier than the one blocking the door of the chamber. But he saw no reason to tutor the adept in the principles of mechanics.
"The things were well made," he conceded. "But you should have made them impervious to pain."
"I would have, too," the adept agreed ruefully, "if I had antic.i.p.ated today"s events. But it made them so terribly amenable. Demons, you know, quite enjoy inflicting pain, but they never have to experience it themselves, and the effect was most amusing. They were broken to harness in record time-it was almost easier than eating them."
Morlock grunted.
"And there I thought we were going to have a civil conversation," the adept complained, tossing his head in irritation so that his dangling nose waggled back and forth. "I am a kind of maker, you know, using the substances of life. You can call it necromancy, but it"s life, not death, which interests me."
Morlock glanced toward the window. His eyes told him that the play of lightning was becoming more frequent. His inner vision told him that a lightning stroke was imminent ... and that an intention was drawing it toward this room.
He looked back toward the adept, who was smiling.
"Yes," he said quietly, "I was wondering when you"d catch on. Aether, the substance of lightning, is semi-intelligent in its ultraheated statesemi-alive. So it comes within my sphere of manipulations."
Morlock knew something about lightning, too. He knew that spicules of lightning-stuff were woven though the fabric of the universe. In deep vision he could weave a cloak of lightning particles to ward off the fire from the sky. He could a.s.semble cells of antilightning particles as well, drawing down thunderbolts.
But he could not do so without surrendering volitional action in the world of the senses. The adept would simply step forward and kill him with its dagger.
"Unbelievably difficult to create a lightning storm over the Old City," the adept was saying cheerfully. "And it"s always a dry storm-never rain."