Текст книги "The Wide World's End"

Автор книги: James Enge

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Kothala of Sandport said, “If the enemy who sent them here in the first place finds them and gives them new lifetaking wands, then they could do much harm indeed.”

This was a new thought to many, and a disturbing one.

“This is not a decision that has to be taken today,” Illion said. “Time may bring them healing, or memory, or death. We should follow at least part of Rild’s kindly suggestion and send to New Moorhope for seers who may glean more from the empty fields of their minds than I was able to do.”

Lernaion was dismayed by this, but he looked around the table and realized the weight of opinion was with Illion.

“If we put that matter aside,” Lernaion said, “what of our colleague’s death? When we take the oath of Guardians and become subject to the rigors of the First Decree, the Graith assumes the role of our protector and vengeancer. It is too late to protect our lost friend, Earno—”

Morlock, to his astonishment, heard Aloê mutter to herself, “Shut your lying mouth.” He wasn’t sure if anyone else heard her; evidently Lernaion did not.

“—who lies dead and murdered alongside the Road. What shall we do for him?”

“I could not disagree with the summoner more!” shouted Rild.

Lernaion’s dry, dark face bent with annoyance and surprise. “Some of your peers here saw him die. I myself saw his body, which lies now in occlusive stasis on the very spot where he fell. Are you saying that Earno is not dead?”

“No, of course not! But you seem to be suggesting that his death ends the threat. But it may be only the beginning! If Earno can be murdered by magic, which one of us is safe? Which one will be next?”

“Our conversation will go smoother if you address yourself to what I have said, not what I seem to have suggested. Because what I mean, I say.”

“But—”

“We didn’t join the Graith to be safe, but to pledge our lives for the safety of others,” Illion observed.

“Yes, but—”

“Rild,” Jordel interrupted, “I urge you to shut your mouth. Shall I put the question? Vocates, I want Rild to be quiet, for his good and ours. We have matters of moment to discuss.”

Rild stood back, startled and offended. His glance slid around the room and he spoke no more.

“Because, listen to me, Guardians,” Jordel continued, “I think we’re starting in the wrong place. The question is not what we should do, but who should do it. Everyone here knows what must be done. We must find out who murdered Earno and why. To that end, we must elect one of our Graith to be investigator and vengeancer on our behalf.”

“I accept your correction,” said Lernaion patiently. “Who, then? We must choose carefully. It would be a strange irony if the investigator were also the criminal.”

Jordel waved his hand. “Oh, I saw that play. And what was the point of all that stuff about his mother? I thought it overrated, honestly.”

“With equal honesty, I assure you I have no idea what you’re talking about. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter at all.”

“That’s what I was saying!”

“It isn’t, but put that aside. Who, vocates, will be your investigator, your vengeancer?”

Many, now, were looking at Morlock. He turned away from them to meet Deor’s dark, amused eye. Deor always enjoyed watching the Graith at Station, which he compared to a puppet show that was popular in his youth, where every puppet in the cast took a turn beating the others with a stick. Deor nodded when he saw Morlock looking at him. Morlock didn’t need to wonder what he would have said if they could have talked. Blood has no price! Earno was an odd man, but a rokhlan and a hero, and (after an awkward start) had been well-loved by Theorn Clan—better than he knew, perhaps.

But Morlock did not choose to undertake the task of vengeance. He said, “I name Vocate Aloê Oaij.”

Startlement flashed like lightning across the chamber. Aloê turned to look at him, her golden eyes agape, her dark, rosy lips poised for a grin.

“No one could be better for the task,” Noreê said coldly. “I say the same name.”

“God Avenger!” cried Jordel. “If Morlock and Noreê agree on something, does anything more need to be said? Anyway. Who’s shrewder? Who’s braver? Who’s more dedicated to the Guard? She was a friend of Earno—she has friends all through the Wardlands. She’s a seer and a fighter. Let me tell you this story—maybe you’ve heard it before—”

“Does anyone disagree?” Lernaion said hastily. “Aloê, are you willing to take up the task?”

Aloê bowed her head in thought. Then she said, “I accept it. God Avenger have pity on the killer, for I’ll have none.”

Naevros pounded the table and there were shouts of assent that echoed all around the chamber. Vocates left their places at the long table and went over to congratulate her. Morlock stepped off the dais to let them pass. Looking up he saw his red-cloaked, dark-skinned, golden-haired wife crowned with the stars painted on the dome’s ceiling. She seemed more than human to him in that moment, as in many others, and he laid the memory of her away in a secret temple of his mind. When the vocates drifted away back to their places he stepped up again and would have said something to her. But she stabbed him with a bitter, golden glance, and he realized that she was angry with him, though he didn’t understand why.

He shrugged and said, “Tell me later.”

“Yes.”

Lernaion rapped the Staff of Exile on the table and said, “Guardians, to order.”

“Lunch!” called out someone hopefully. The voice was disguised, but Morlock thought he recognized it as Deor’s.

The cry was echoed a couple times around the long table, and a wintry smile bent Lernaion’s brown lips. “The Guard now,” he said. “Lunch later. Guardians, I see that the stranger Kelat is with us. Let us do now as we have done before, and join our minds, strength to strength, and seek the truth in the mind of this stranger. I ask that you permit my colleague Bleys to join us at Station, so that he may prepare Kelat to bear witness.”

“Guardians!” cried a voice near the Witness Stone. “Vocates and Summoner Lernaion! I say no to this. I urge you all to say no as well.”

Looking over, Morlock saw that the speaker was Gyrla Keelmaker. Her face was red and sweating, and she leaned on the table as she shouted out her words. “Many of you know me,” she continued, “but some of you may not. I don’t come to Station to tell witty stories or make myself admired. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can go about our real work. But my brother was Thain Stockrey, and he is dead today because of this Bleys and the games he played with the Witness Stone. The Graith chose not to exile him for those crimes, though God Avenger knows he deserved it. You probed his mind with the Witness Stone and found its uncleanness to be of use to the Guard. ‘We don’t judge; we defend.’ I’ve heard it a million times. Well, I do judge, and I tell you I will not stand in rapport with that monster and the Witness Stone. Neither should you. Look at him! Look at him! How can you trust him?”

Bleys stood in a patch of chilly light from the windows. His head was bowed, his pink, hairless face frozen in a smile. The names of Kinian and Stockrey would haunt him to his grave, Morlock thought, without any sympathy at all.

Lernaion’s dark face grew darker with anger, but he spoke patiently. “Who better than Bleys?”

“Anyone! No one!” cried Gyrla. “But if you speak merely of skills, there are not a few who can see as deeply as Bleys into the unseen world, and who do not have the blood of fellow Guardians on their hands.”

“You would persuade me better if your tone were calmer,” Lernaion said in a level voice.

“When she finds no one will listen, a Guardian’s voice may grow shrill,” Noreê said thoughtfully. “I agree with Gyrla in this. Our rapport will be deeper, our union closer, if Bleys is not part of it. I don’t trust him either, and I doubt I am alone here.”

There was a general growl of agreement and Lernaion glanced thoughtfully around the table. “Very well,” he said. “It is for you, Guardians, to decide who stands at Station with you. Illion and Noreê: after Bleys, you are called the greatest seers in the Graith. Will you prepare the witness for the Stone?”

“Wait a moment,” said Jordel.

“Have you an entertaining story to tell us, Jordel?” Lernaion said, his long calm fraying to the breaking point.

“Thousands,” said Jordel agreeably, “and I’ll tell them to you some time over wine and shellfish. But for now, just one point. I don’t trust Bleys either. He keeps his white cloak thanks to you and Earno. But now Earno is dead, and for all we know, you may be next. When we are in rapport with each other and the Stone, Bleys may work some harm against us. I hope you don’t mind my being so frank, Summoner Bleys?”

“If I were allowed to speak in this assembly,” said Bleys warmly, “I would assure Vocate Jordel of my willingness to harm him. As it is, I prefer to stand silent.”

“I guess that’s irony?” Jordel said. “Anyway: who’ll guard the Guardians while we question the witness? It must be someone Bleys couldn’t get around somehow.”

“Let him do it!” said Noreê, pointing at Morlock. “They hate each other almost as much. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“. . . as much as you hate us both, my dear?” Bleys suggested in his most grandfatherly voice.

“My peer,” Lernaion said heavily, “be silent.” He turned to Morlock. “I don’t know if Noreê spoke in malice or in jest. But I think she’s right. What do you say?”

Morlock weighed his options and at length said, “Yes.” He stepped off the dais and went to stand by Bleys.

Deor came over and stood on the other side of the old summoner.

“Well, well,” said Bleys in a genial whisper that was audible through the whole room. “A scion of Theornn on each side of me. I almost feel one of the clan.”

Neither Morlock nor Deor rose to the bait, but Naevros made a throat-clearing sound of disgust and walked past the other vocates, nearly shouldering Lernaion out of his way. He walked down the steps of the dais and went to stand next to Morlock.

“I stood with Morlock in the North and I stand with him now!” Naevros shouted up at Lernaion, who was staring coldly down at them.

“We see that,” Lernaion said evenly, and turned away.

Morlock felt his face grow hot. The tangle of emotions between him and Aloê and Naevros was more than he could easily understand. But Naevros’ good opinion had always meant a great deal to him, even before he had known who Aloê was. He pounded Naevros on the arm and said nothing; there was nothing he could have said.

Bleys looked as if he wanted to say something; his mouth was working as if he had just discovered it contained a live scorpion. But in the end he, too, was silent.

They watched as Illion and Noreê led the stranger Kelat to the Witness Stone.

Morlock had been present at a handful of such events, including one that had preceded his birth, when his mother Nimue Viviana had stood on the Witness Stone. They always filled him with a certain dread. But he did not like standing aside while Aloê went into rapture without him. If there was danger, he felt they should share it. But he had made his choice and would stand by it.

Aloê noted the passing of Illion and Kelat only vaguely. Her thoughts were focused inward, preparing her mind for rapport. The union involved would be superficial, but she did not want her anger against Morlock spilling out into the minds of her peers; it wasn’t their business. She wrapped her private thoughts in a cloak of solitude and hid them deep within her.

Her insight told her that her peers were ready for rapport. She took the first, shallowest step into vision.

She was one-yet-separate with laughing Jordel, bitter Noreê, angry Gyrla, frightened Rild . . . all of them, all of them were there with her. She did not sense the stranger, though—could catch no echo of Kelat in all the voices in her head.

The rapport was odd. Fiery. The talic world was blood-bright, smoke-dark. Something was wrong. Something was wrong and it was her. She heard her voice speak the words of the dragon and knew her will was lost.

Morlock watched the faces of his peers change from wakeful purpose to sleepy emptiness. Then they changed again. Jaws clenched, fists closed and opened in unison all around the table.

“Something’s gone wrong,” he said to Bleys.

“Yes,” said the summoner, without any of his carefully artificial grandfatherly warmth.

“It’s like dragonspell,” whispered Deor. “Look at their eyes! You can see the redness through their lids.”

Dragonspell was notoriously infectious. “Deortheorn, get every thain out of the chamber instantly,” Morlock said. “You had better go as well, Naevros.”

“I have a talisman against binding spells,” Naevros observed. “But I’ll help Deor with his herding while you seers discuss . . . whatever this is.”

Bleys and Morlock waited while Deor cleared the room and the great doors of the chamber were closed and barred from the outside.

“Well, Vocate,” Bleys said. “What shall we do?”

“I don’t know,” Morlock admitted. “Tea from maijarra leaf will unfix a dragonspell, but first we must break the rapport somehow.”

“Difficult,” Bleys said, “without entering into it. Dangerous if we do: we may end up captives ourselves.”

“Kelat must be the source,” said Morlock. “But I looked him in the eyes this morning, and I would swear he was not spellbound.”

“Odd, though,” Bleys said. “Did you talk with him? I did once. Something not there. Or maybe there was something there that didn’t belong. . . .”

The Dragon spoke.

Each of the Guardians standing at the long table, and Kelat as well, opened their mouths and spoke in an ill-tuned chorus, “Greetings, Guardians! I thank you and your colleagues for stepping into the trap I so carefully prepared. I am Rulgân the Kinslayer, also called Silverfoot. My plan is to steal something from you if I can, deal with you if I must.”

“An honest thief,” remarked Bleys, with a return of his habitual irony.

“Of course!” the many-throated monster replied. “How I had hoped that you, Master Bleys, or you, young Ambrosius, would be among my captives. But I am foiled at every turn, I see.” Dozens of throats barked in unison: the dragon was laughing.

“You might not have found us so easy to master, o son of fire and envy,” Bleys replied.

“You would have thrown open the door and welcomed me in!” disputed the dragon through the mouths of the vocates. “That was the genius of my plan.”

“What do you want?” Morlock asked.

“Morlock Ambrosius, you are a practical man! I did not understand that at one time. And so I dismissed you. And then I hated you, for reasons we both know. And later I scorned you. But now I know that you were right all along: choose what you want, and give all else to get it! For me, for a long time, that one thing was knowledge. I paid much for it, as you know—mutilated and staked to the floor in that temple of the Gray Folk. But it was nothing to see all that I saw, through so many different eyes—hear what I heard through so many different ears. And to act! To murder! To love! To steal! To save! To die in triumph, and yet slink away in terror to survive! I have lived so many different lives, drunk deeply of so many wells of sin and truth. The price was nothing. It was nothing.”

As the dragon spoke through the mouths of their colleagues and friends, Morlock and Bleys by unspoken consent began to sidle toward the Witness Stone and Kelat.

When the dragon paused, Morlock said quietly, “I congratulate you.”

“I know that you do. You said something like that when you saw me in my temple, and I thought you were amusing yourself at my expense. Later, when I knew so many truths, I realized the truth of this. The greed for knowledge is greater than the greed for gold, or any mere thing.”

“Greed is greed,” Morlock said indifferently.

“So the dwarves taught you; so I taught the mandrakes, as their god. I know how to tell truths, Morlock, and also lies cunningly fashioned like truth.”

“I see that you have assimilated a broad range of literary classics.”

“You two-eyed fool, the world has been my library! I have read deeply in it. I see what you are doing now, by the way, and I let it continue only because it will do no good. But let me show you something. Yes, let me show you something.”

Every other Guardian standing at the table reached up with both hands and began to choke himself or herself.

Aloê was one of them. Morlock saw her slim hands grip her long, graceful throat and squeeze. He repressed several conflicting impulses and said, “Rulgân! Do not anger us past the point of reason. You offered a deal.”

The brown hands relaxed their grip, fell down at Aloê’s side. The same was true of the other vocates.

“I wanted you to know,” the dragon said, through Aloê’s mouth alone, “that I know what your pearl is. Yes, and I know exactly what lengths you will go to defend it—defend her. No, candidly, I do not want to anger you beyond reason.”

All the dragon-possessed Guardians spoke in their unlovely chorus, “But I have the power to take it from you, your pearl of great price. You will deal with me because you must. Or you will tolerate my theft because you must.”

“What are we talking about?” Morlock said. “What is it you want?”

“I thought it was knowledge,” the dragon said slowly through the many mouths. “If it were, I would have had it by now, and moved on to certain experiments I have often thought to try. . . .”

“Knowledge of what?” Morlock asked. Bleys’ eyes were glowing. The old seer had entered visionary rapture. Morlock hoped his conversation would distract the dragon from whatever Bleys was attempting.

“I wish to travel on the Sea of Worlds,” the dragon said in a crowd of voices.

“To gain more knowledge?”

“To continue my life! Has it escaped your notice, young Ambrosius, that this world is dying, this vast case for your so-small, so-precious pearl? I wish to flee, but I cannot. You could, but you do not.”

“I haven’t given up hope.”

“You don’t know what I know! But you could. Do you follow me? I offer my knowledge for my escape, the lives of these people you care about for my own life.”

“That is your deal? Why don’t you just take the knowledge you crave?”

“I hoped I could,” the dragon’s stolen voices said ruefully. “But I see from one, and then another, that what is really needed is skill: the skill of piloting through the shifting currents of the Sea of Worlds. Perhaps even a talent. Knowledge may be stolen, but skill must be acquired and talent is inborn. No, I will need someone to pilot me to a better world, a world with more life in it, if I am to live forever.”

“You plan to live forever?”

“How else can I know everything that can be known?”

Morlock shrugged his crooked shoulders. “You can’t!”

“You certainly won’t. This world is doomed and I know who is killing its sun. That is the knowledge I propose to trade to you, Guardians. In return I want safe passage to a fresher world. I will self-bind not to harm my pilot, whomever you choose for the task.”

The pale glow in Bleys’ eyes faded. He met Morlock’s eye, glanced down to Morlock’s sword, then inclined his head slightly toward Kelat.

For a wordless communication, Bleys’ meaning was fairly clear. He wanted Morlock to kill Kelat. That would break the chains binding the Guardians at Station.

This was a reasonable plan—in fact, a fairly obvious one. Morlock was not inclined to kill someone on Bleys’ mere say-so, however. He ascended into vision himself—the slightest step into the visionary world, with barely a thin permeable veil between his awareness and the world of matter.

He saw the Guardians at Station, a coronet of souls writhing in fierce, brilliant agony. Intertwined with their spirits was another coronet of fiery thorns. That passed through each of the Guardians at Station and returned back to its source: the stranger Kelat.

He heard a dim thought, like a voice speaking in a distant room: Bleys was right—killing Kelat would break the ring and free the Guardians. But. . . .

Morlock’s body did not move, but his awareness focused on Kelat and the Witness Stone. The coronet of fire passed out of Kelat and through the Guardians and through Kelat again, like a great wheel. But there was a smaller spiked wheel of flames that passed between a fiery locus in Kelat’s brain, through his arms, into the Witness Stone, and out of the Stone into Kelat’s other arm.

Morlock’s mechanically inclined imagination saw them as meshing gears of fire. Break either one, the device would be powerless. . . .

He drew Tyrfing. With the blade to focus his power, he could move a little, even in deeper rapture than this. He approached the Witness Stone.

Rulgân shouted out threats and promises through the many mouths he had in thrall, but Morlock did not heed them, could not really hear them: he felt their vibrations in the coronet of fire.

He dropped out of visionary rapture. He swung his sword and struck his target: the Witness Stone.

“No, you fool!” screamed Bleys when, too late, he realized Morlock’s intent.

The Stone shattered. The Guardians cried out in many voices—not their own, but not all one any longer.

“I am broken in pieces!” shrieked Noreê.

“Your pearl will dissolve in the wine of death, fool!” snarled Illion.

Kelat simply screamed and screamed without words.

Morlock jumped up on the dais next to the Stone and the screaming stranger.

Kelat’s crazed eyes fixed on Morlock and his sword. “Kill me!” he begged. “It’s in me! Inside of me! It hurts so much! Oh, Death and Justice, kill me now!”

Morlock, no particular friend to Death or Justice said, “No.” He struck Kelat strategically on the side of the head and the stranger fell from the dais to the floor. Morlock jumped down to make sure he hadn’t broken his neck in the fall and was relieved to find he was still breathing.

Next to the dais, Bleys was weeping over the fragments of the Witness Stone like a child whose favorite toy has been broken. “Why did you do it?” the summoner sobbed. “Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know what’s been lost? To save the life of an invader, an outsider, mere bait in a trap, you have destroyed long ages of accumulated wisdom!”

Morlock looked down at the groveling old man with a mixture of pity and contempt. “The trap will lead us to the trapper, Bleys. And if this is the last age of the world, your accumulated wisdom will disperse in darkness anyway. Look to the stranger! Don’t let him die or awake again.”

Morlock ran around the long oval of the dais until he reached Aloê. She was slumped across the Long Table, her limbs spasming wildly. Naevros was already standing over her, but he stood back as Morlock approached. Morlock vaulted onto the dais and picked his wife up in his arms.

Her eyes were open but wild. Her limbs were still thrashing, like a baby who hasn’t learned how to use her arms and legs. On her throat were dark handprints, and on one he saw a deeper cross-mark: the imprint of the ring on her finger, the ring he had made for her.

He wondered if he should go into vision and try to search for her spirit. Who could advise him? Illion, Noreê, and Lernaion were as bad as this or worse. Bleys was babbling like a dotard. Earno was dead. . . .

Aloê’s golden eyes focused on him.

“Crazy bastard!” she whispered hoarsely, and bit him on the upper arm.

Then he knew that all would be well.