The Wide World's End (38 page)

“We'll need fire—somewhere out of the wind.” He glanced around and pointed at a hollow free from snow.

“Right,” Ambrosia agreed. “You take Deor; I'll carry Kelat.”

They hustled their unconscious companions over to the hollow. Ambrosia set up an Imperfect Occlusion overhead while Morlock made a fire out of some scrub bushes. The dwarf with the sun-bright hat followed them and watched what they did carefully but didn't interfere.

Presently Morlock and Ambrosia were sipping tea from sheckware mugs. They had wrapped their unconscious comrades in their cloaks and put them near the fire so that they would not be in danger from the cold.

Morlock said nothing through all of this, and Ambrosia very little. Her red-rimmed eyes met his and she smiled furiously.

Morlock looked at the spear-carrier, who seemed to shiver within his finery, and he said, “Join us. If your watch permits.”

Eagerly, the dwarf laid aside his spear and sat down at the little fire. “Thanks, bold strangers!” he said. “I thought you merely victims of dragonspell or some other such truck, but now I see how wrong I was. What were your names again? You are called Ambrosius?”

Morlock nodded. “Among other things.” He sipped his tea. The maijarra decoction was metallic and unpleasant, and in large quantities it was itself a poison. But he wasn't drinking it for pleasure. Also, it was warm.

The watch-dwarf looked at Ambrosia, who volunteered nothing and did not look at him. After a few moments he said to Morlock, “Any kinship to the Regent of the Vraids, then?”

“I am Ambrosia Viviana,” said Morlock's sister in a voice colder than the white wind.

The dwarf squawked and leapt to his feet. He ran off upslope into the storm, leaving his spear behind.

“Ha,” Ambrosia said, and drank her tea.

Presently the watch-dwarf returned. With him was a company of dwarves, also resplendent in scarlet and gold. In their midst was one who seemed to be half a head taller, but in fact was teetering along on boots with thick soles.

“Great Regent and true ruler of the Vraids,” said the tall one, bowing as low as he dared from his perch and doffing his bright hat, “Lady Ambrosia Viviana, welcome again to the Endless Empire! Won't you come under with us and share a few words and a dish of hot mushrooms? The Lorvadh of the Year hurries hither to greet you.”

“We're comfortable here,” Ambrosia said, as indifferent to the dwarves' belated courtesy as to the truth. “The Lorvadh may come out here, if he chooses.”

Morlock was not comfortable, and he suspected his sister was less so. But no doubt she had her reasons. He pulled some dried fish from Deor's pack and handed a piece of it to Ambrosia. She made a face, then bit a chunk off and chewed it like jerky.

The commander stuttered for a while, but as he managed to say nothing that was obviously a word, there was no occasion to answer him. He staggered off atop his stilty shoes and left his company bemused behind him. After some whispered discussion, they formed up in lines and stood with their spears upright, like an honor guard.

The dark day was approaching noon and the snow had stopped when a lone figure approached, wrapped in a cloak of blue and gold, a circlet of electrum on his head.

“Lady Ambrosia!” said the newcomer. “I ran here like a rabbit as soon as I heard you were passing though the Dolich Kund. Won't you—won't you please come under with me? I can offer you a steambath, mushrooms, beer, conversation, or simply a decent bed to rest on for a night.”

“Well, I don't know,” said Ambrosia. “We're rather in a hurry. What do you think, Morlock? Lorvadh Vyrn, this is my brother, Morlock Ambrosius, master of all makers and the deadliest blade in the universal world.”

“Save one,” Morlock pointed out.

“Honored,” said the Lorvadh briefly to Morlock. “I'm sure our makers will be glad to receive you among the work levels.”

Ambrosia frowned.

“Or rather—really—since you are the brother of our ally and friend the Lady Ambrosia—I cannot do enough for you, but I promise I will try. Won't you come in? I'm afraid the weather will make you unwell.”

“Eh.”

“My brother will be pleased to accept your invitation,” Ambrosia said, rising. “And so, I suppose, must I be. Have your people bring along our baggage and our friends, won't you? Treat them kindly; the one is a king's son, the other a trusted counsellor of the Elder of Theorn Clan.”

She and the Lorvadh walked off together side by side.

Morlock got to his feet. He saw the first watch-dwarf at his side, stooping to recover his spear.

“What's a Lorvadh?” Morlock asked him.

“A kind of king, I guess,” the watcher said. “The Greater Fifteen elect one of their number to rule through the year.”

“Hm.” Morlock stooped and picked up Deor and put him over one shoulder. Then he hefted Kelat over the other. He walked off after Ambrosia with slow, short steps.

It was undignified, perhaps. But he would not leave his friends to be carried by strangers. They could bring the mere stuff: in Morlock's sense of the fitness of things, that was all right.

But he felt no kinship for them,
harven
or
ruthen
.

They stayed only a brief time in the Endless Empire under the Blackthorns. But that first day they needed baths, and food, and rest, and they got it. Ambrosia spent much of her time talking with the Lorvadh and the others of the Greater Fifteen, so the three males were often left to their own devices.

Morlock spent some time roaming the lower levels with Deor and Kelat in tow. Makers occupied a warren just above miners, and neither type of dwarf was often seen on the higher levels where the mercators and soldiers dwelled among the halls of feasting.

The makers were interested to meet Morlock, and he had some interesting conversations among them. But they had nothing to tell about the threat to the sun, or the world at large: many of them had not seen the light of the sun since they were children.

They did feel that makers should stick together, though, and they saw to it that Morlock had winter gear and supplies for the long trip north. He also made, with their help, a new stabbing spear to replace the one that Kelat had adopted. In return, he drew a few multidimensional maps for their use in creating gems, which they viewed with suspicion and interest, and they had a boisterous beery supper in which Morlock drank the masters of making and their chief apprentices under the table, even though he didn't particularly like beer.

His head was still aching the next morning when someone awakened him with a friendly pitcher of water thrown in his face.

He jumped up, snorting, and looked around to see who he should strangle. His bleary eyes focused on his sister, Ambrosia, calmly putting an empty pitcher aside on a table.

“If you're not too busy hobnobbing with the servants, brother,” she said, “the Lorvadh and his councillors would like to meet you.”

“Eh.”

“You'll have to do better than that.”

Morlock took his time: shaved, bathed, ate, and dressed himself in new clothes the “servants” had made for him. But he was still angry about the remark when Ambrosia led him up a long flight of stairs to the Council Hall under three-peaked Jyrhyrning.

There he found Kelat talking with the Lorvadh, and fourteen other dwarves dressed resplendently in a rainbow of glittering colors. There was a great table of stained pinewood with an oaken throne at one end. There were a few dwarves dressed in drab clothing sitting on stools in a shadowy end of the hall. They clutched books in their hands with arcane astronomical symbols painted on the covers. The hall was high enough in the mountain to have decent windows. These had been well made some considerable time ago, but the casings had cracked in more recent years, with the repairs done hastily and (to Morlock's practiced eye) badly. These blunders were partly hidden by velvet bunting.

He saw all this, but he did not see his friend Deor.

“Where is Deortheorn?” he asked Ambrosia.

She looked annoyed. “Deor is well. But this conversation is for the Lorvadh and his councillors to get to know you, and Kelat. There are some dwarvish astronomers, too, who have a report to give about the health of the sun.”

The Lorvadh was approaching, with his hands extended in greeting. Morlock kept his eye on Ambrosia and repeated, “Where is Deor?”

“In our quarters,” Ambrosia said, shrugging.

Morlock turned to the Lorvadh. “Lorvadh Vyrn: will you send messengers to bring my
harven
-kin Deor to us?”

“Er . . . I . . . I suppose it could be done,” the dwarf monarch said. “Yes, of course it could be done. He could sit with the astronomers. This gathering is really for us of the
vrevnenen
to get to know each other.”

“What does
vrevnenen
mean?”

“‘Rulers,' Morlock,” Ambrosia supplied.

“It's a word I don't know,” Morlock said to the Lorvadh. “A word I do know is
harven
. It means that where Deor cannot go, I will not go.”

“I'm afraid it's impossible,” the Lorvadh said patiently. “I have my Master of Accountants here, my Master of Armies, my Master of Law-Speakers, My Master of Meatpackers—all the masters of the Endless Empire. Ambrosia describes your . . . your friend as a thain. I believe I know what that means. It is quite impossible for him to sit at our table.”

Morlock looked at Kelat, who was just coming over, and seemed shocked at what he had heard. He looked at Ambrosia, who met his eye with knowing impatience. He deliberately looked over the head of the Lorvadh and turned away. Vyrn was saying something but he paid no heed. He left the hall and rattled down the stairs and hallways of the warrens until he came to their quarters.

Deor was there, packing their things. He looked up with a quizzical eye as Morlock entered.

“So soon?” the dwarf asked. “Ambrosia gave me to understand you might be much of the night. The Fifteen were apparently impressed by your feats at the drinking board and wanted to put you to the test.”

“When you're done, we're leaving.”

“I'm done. Just the two of us—er, the three of us?”

Morlock turned to see Kelat standing in the doorway. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't know that Deor had been excluded.”

“Is that what this is about?” Deor shook his head and laughed. “Morlocktheorn, it's not as if I care. Sitting with the Fifteen Masters of the Endless Empire is not my idea of an evening's entertainment.”

“Nor mine. Thanks for packing.” Morlock took Tyrfing and his new stabbing spear in their scabbards and bound them to the pack Deor had made for him, then threw the pack on his shoulders. Kelat and Deor also shouldered their packs, and by that time Ambrosia was there.

“You, sir,” she said to Morlock, “are the most irritating man not named ‘Merlin.'”

“Eh.”

“That makes it all better, of course. Well, let's get out of here before they put us to death for insulting their king.” She took on her pack and they trudged to the western gate.

Waiting for them was a division of spear-dwarves clad in scarlet and gold. At their head was a dwarf wearing a silver circlet in his graying red hair and a shirt of chain mail. “Morlock Ambrosius?” he said, as the four approached.

“Yes,” Morlock said flatly. If it came to a fight, he thought they could get through the gate with a little luck, and then the narrowness of the passage would be in their favor. . . .

The dwarf held out both hands, empty and palm up, a gesture of peace. “I am Fyndh, Master of Soldiers for the Endless Empire. We did not have a chance to meet in the Council of Fifteen just now.”

Morlock considered for a moment, then held out his hands, empty and palm down, over Fyndh's hands without making contact.

Fyndh smiled and withdrew his hands. “Vyrn is an idiot. He inherited most of his money and made the rest by loaning it at interest. My father was a shoemaker, and I worked my way through the army from the lowest rank. We see the world differently—and I think I see it not so differently from you.”

Morlock nodded, waited.

Fyndh continued, “My friends among the makers speak highly of you. I'm sorry we never got a chance to drink together. If you and your companions succeed in what you are about, you will always have friends in the Endless Empire. If not—well, we will remember you with honor until the sun goes out.”

Morlock nodded and said, “Good fortune, Master Fyndh.”

“To you and yours,” Fyndh said. He said goodbye to each of the companions as they passed, and led his troops in a cheer as they walked out the gate and up into the pale light of the sun.

Ambrosia fell into step beside Morlock. “Fyndh will be their next Lorvadh, I think. I hope. Vyrn will never be a friend to the Vraids or the Wardlands now.”

Morlock had nothing to say to that, and so said nothing. The rough, snow-stained terrain of the Dolich Kund was before them, and the sun stood dying in the sky above. It was a long, bitter road to the end of the world.