The Wide World's End (17 page)

“Maintain the Guard!” replied several of the thains reflexively, but Noreê shouted over them, “Brave words, Guardian! But you can't fight your way through my thains; there are too many of them.”

“The odds were worse at the Hill of Storms,” Deor remarked. He unslung his axe and flourished it.

Morlock drew both sword and spear. He and Deor stood back to back.

“Thains, unhood your spears and advance,” Noreê directed. “Do not kill the dwarf if it can be helped.”

Most of the thains shook the hoods off their bright spears and advanced slowly up the street. Glancing about, Morlock saw that there were thains cautiously advancing from the shadows on all sides of them. And there were others who stood indecisive behind them.

“
Khuknen vei vedorna
,” Deor remarked in a low voice (“Their hearts aren't in this”) and Morlock agreed, “
Zhai!
”

Morlock had become fairly skilled at using a thain's spear, and he thought that if he could take one away from the first unfortunate who approached him, their odds would go up. His stabbing spear was well-balanced for throwing, and that might take them off guard. If they could open up a hole in the wall of thains, it would be well to pick up Kelat and retreat into a narrow area between the houses, where their opponents' numbers would matter even less. . . .

Then there were other shadowy forms running into the street, hooded men coming through the gaps between the buildings, filling the empty moonslit streetstones between Morlock and Deor and the other Guardians. None of their faces could be seen, but each one wore a ring made of blackiron on his right hand.

It was the Guild of Silent Men. Morlock lowered both his swords and waited on events.

“Guardians, stand down!” said one of the Silent Men. “I am Teyn, Master of the Guild of Silent Men. I speak also for my colleague Seetch, now in the North.”

“But you don't speak for the Graith of Guardians,” Noreê said, as her thains hesitated. “This is an internal matter of the Graith, and I warn you to stay out of it.”

“If it involves Ambrosius, it involves us. His blood is ours and ours is his.”

Noreê stepped forward to look at Teyn's face, still half hidden in his hood. She glanced over to Morlock as she said, “You must be mistaken. No member of the Graith may be associated with another order, or he is subject to penalty under the First Decree.”

“He may not be associated with us, but we associate ourselves with him! I warn you, Guardian. You wield your power under our sufferance, the sufferance of the Guarded. The enemy of the Guarded is the enemy of the Wardlands. Do not make yourself our enemy. We will fight our enemies here as we fought them in the North.”

“I accept the limits on my power,” Noreê said slowly, as if she especially enjoyed saying the words, “and woe to those who do otherwise. Morlock! Do you insist on seizing the Graith's prisoner with the help of these . . . gentlemen?”

“I say what I have said: get out of my way. I am on the Graith's business.”

Noreê smiled like a shark and said, “Guardians, stand down. We will not go to war with the Guarded.”

The thains lowered their spears and hooded them—many with visible relief. They filed away into the night.

“Good luck on the Graith's business!” Noreê called to Morlock before she, too, turned away. “The Graith will have some business with you when you return.”

“What's that about?” Deor asked, bewildered at Noreê's sudden about face.

Morlock thought he understood it. Noreê believed she could prove Impairment of the Guard against him. Certainly other vocate who had joined leagues with the Guarded against the Graith had been sent into exile. He thought of what Aloê had said and wondered if she was right.

He grunted and shrugged.

“Oh. Now I understand,” Deor said wryly. They reslung their weapons and went to talk to Teyn.

“Morlock Ambrosius,” said Teyn, reaching out both hands. Morlock grasped them with both of his and said, “Teyn.” He wished that the Silent Men had not intervened, but it would be churlish not to recognize the generosity of their actions. The Guild had nothing to gain, and perhaps much to lose, by angering the Graith. But they had risked that for his sake.

“Can we be of any more help?” Teyn asked anxiously. “We know the Silent Folk in the North fought hard at your side; we are willing to do the same.”

There was an old rivalry, Morlock remembered, between Teyn and his colleague Seetch (long since married and moved to the colony of Silent Men and Women in the North). Perhaps there was some of that in tonight's events.

“There are a couple wounded thains behind the lockhouse, and a hole in the wall,” Morlock said. “You might see to them.”

“And, in truth, some of your people could help us carry the prisoner,” Deor added. “Morlock has some transport arranged, but it is a ways away, I believe. We expected Kelat to be walking. Candidly, I am surprised the man is still unconscious.”

“He did have brain surgery earlier today,” Morlock pointed out. “That was before I bashed his head against a wall.”

“Eh,
harven
. If I'm ever imprisoned in a lockhouse, please don't break in and rescue me. But, Teyn. . . .”

“Certainly!” Teyn called a few Silent Men over and gave orders: so many to accompany Morlock and Deor, so many to repair the lockhouse and tend to Krida and Garol, so many to return to the Hall, and so on.

Eventually they were walking westward again, past the front of the lockhouse (where some resentful looking thains had resumed their guard post). Teyn went with them, talking of this and that with Deor.

“. . . and no matter what Morlock has planned for the next stage in the journey,” Deor said, “at least it won't be horses. When I'm on one of those things, I feel as if I'm a mile from the ground! And one never knows when they will turn aside to eat some grass or chase a rabbit.”

“I don't think they do that, Thain Deor,” Teyn said mildly.

“It hasn't been proven, I admit, but consider the evidence! Rabbits eat grass; horses love grass. Why wouldn't they eat rabbits?”

“Or the reverse.”

“The grass eating the rabbits? I've seen grass like that in Tychar. Mindless, vicious, carnivorous, poisonous. Never trust a vegetable, Teyn; they will only make you sad. What in the secret name of God Creator is
that
?”

They were deep in the Low Hills now; dwellings were rare and the paving on the road was coarser and narrower. But there was a dark shape—no, several dark shapes darkening the air between them and the moon.

“Here we are,” Morlock called up into the night.

“We see you!” replied the night. “Stop moving. And ware claws.”

“‘Ware claws,'” repeated Deor, and there was no real danger of him moving.

Three winged pieces of night landed on the road before them. Their pelts or feathers were black, at least in the blank, cold light of the major moons. Their hindquarters were like horses with long feathery tails, except that they had claws instead of hooves. Their wings were as wide as dragons, and their forequarters were like birds of prey—dark hawks with silver eyes.

And they were saddled, and the saddles held riders. Deor relaxed when he recognized the riders.

“Good night and greetings to you, Guardians!” he called. “What brings you flying this way?”

Naevros dismounted from the nearest hippogriff and said, “The same that brings you, Guardian!”

“I was afraid of that,” Deor remarked quietly, and looked reproachfully at Morlock.

Naevros greeted each one of the Silent Men by name, which surprised Morlock, and then he embraced Morlock, which surprised him even more.

“There was trouble at the lockhouse, I see?” he guessed, nodding toward the snoring prisoner.

Morlock nodded.

“Maybe I should have been there,” Naevros said ruefully.

“No,” Morlock said, thinking of Noreê and the danger of exile. “Besides,” he said, noticing the stink of sex rising from Naevros' clothes, “you had other work.”

Naevros snickered in a way that made Morlock think less of him, pounded Morlock on his higher shoulder, and let him go. Had he embraced him to show friendship or advertise his conquest? Naevros thought of his sexual experiences that way, Morlock knew: as conquests.

Now the other vocates had dismounted: Sundra and Keluaê. They approached to greet Morlock and Deor, and to be introduced to the Silent Men. Some account was given of the raid on the lockhouse and its aftermath, with Deor and Teyn doing much of the talking.

The scents of Sundra and Keluaê mingled oddly with Naevros' in the cold night air. Had he had sex with one or both of them? It was none of Morlock's business. After Morlock had sex he usually sponged himself off before meeting people, but perhaps that was excessively prudish. Had he been raised by human beings, he felt he might understand these things better.

“And now, I suppose . . .” Sundra began, looking at Morlock with eyes like pools of shadow in the moonlight.

“Yes; we must go,” Morlock agreed. “Thanks for bringing your friends, Sundra.”

“They brought us! As you saw. They know full well that the times are full of danger; they feel the sickness in the sun, the coldness in the sky, better than we can understand. And they will take you far along your way. But. . . .”

“Say on, Vocate. We won't be offended.”

“Hippogriffs are not horses. You will not direct them. If you attempt it—well, do not.”

“We won't,” Deor assured her, faintly but sincerely.

“The saddles are for your convenience, and they are a great concession. I must ask you to take them off and discard them when the hippogriffs have taken you as far as they choose.”

“We'll take them off and destroy them,” said Morlock, loud enough for the hippogriffs to hear. He hoped they understood Wardic.

“Good! They call themselves ‘the Free People' and they much despise anything that can be tamed.”

Morlock nodded.

“Goodbye then!” said Naevros. “Good luck! Send word when you can!” He embraced him again.

Sundra and Keluaê also stepped forward to embrace . . . Deor, of whom they were extremely fond. They shook hands with Morlock, and Teyn held up his hands when Morlock turned to say goodbye to him and his Guildmen.

“There are no words of parting between us, Ambrosius,” Teyn said. “We are always together. Good luck on your quest. Your luck will be the world's luck, I think.”

Morlock nodded and turned away. With Deor's help, he lifted Kelat across a hippogriff's saddle and bound him there. Deor and he each mounted a hippogriff.

They stayed there without moving, waiting for something, some sign.

“My friend,” said Morlock, “bear me where you will, as far as you will.”

The hippogriff leapt into the air and the others followed, their wings booming like storm winds on the chill evening air. They turned toward the red moons lowering in the east and flew away.

So Vocate Morlock Ambrosius left the Wardlands on the wings of a hippogriff and the winds of the world, never to return.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

A Needle of Sunlight

The hippogriffs landed them among the foothills of the eastern Whitethorns in the hour before dawn. They had stayed to watch with their star-silver eyes while Morlock kindled a fire and burned the saddles. Once the saddles were largely embers they unfolded their wings and took to the sky again, black shadows against the cold gray sky of morning. Neither Morlock nor Deor ever heard them make a sound with their mouths. Nor did Kelat, but he didn't seem to be hearing anything: he was still unconscious.

“That,” said Deor, “was the worst thing you have ever done to me. But at least I know now that nothing can ever be worse. No method of travel could possibly be more hellish than flying those speechless beasts over half the chaos-begotten world.”

Morlock thought it was reckless to make suppositions of this sort, given that their journey had hardly begun. What he said aloud, however, was, “Eh.”

“That's easy for you to say. Too easy, if we come right down to it,
harven
.”

“Eh.”

“Have it your way. What are you going to do with our friend here?”

“I am going to stab him through the eye with a needle of sunlight.”

“Well, I suppose you feel that's—Is that some kind of metaphor?”

“No.”

“Why are you going to do such a ridiculous thing?”

“When I was staying at New Moorhope after—it was some years ago—”

“Yes,
harven
, I remember it. Go on.”

“The healers there woke a woman from a coma this way.”

“Urrrr. All right. What if it doesn't work? He's not much good to us as he is. In fact, he'll die if he doesn't wake up eventually. Unless you can think of a way to get water and nourishment into his veins while he sleeps.”