Blood of Ambrose

CHAPTER ELEVEN WITHIN THE BALLS

Through the nine or so months they hid within the stony womb of Ambrose's hidden passages, "sitting on each other's damn elbows," as Ambrosia herself impatiently put it, the King only saw the dwarf Wyrtheorn embarrassed once. He only saw him angry once. This cheerful unflappability was one of the things that made him a good companion, but it was one of the things that set him apart from the others, made him a little strange to Lathmar.

For Merlin's children were anything but unflappable. Ambrosia was frequently and furiously angry. For Lathmar she clearly felt equal amounts of affection and contempt, and would spill from one to the other in midconversation.

That didn't bother him. He always knew she had felt that way, and it was almost a relief to hear her say as much. Her anger didn't frighten him, but her weakness did. He watched one night, covertly and with mounting horror, as she sat talking with Morlock and Wyrth, talking and talking in her hard clear voice, one arm thrown carelessly about her brother's shoulders (as crooked as her own), her other hand holding tightly to one of his. Talking and talking as her head drooped and jerked with weariness, talking in her hard clear voice. Afraid to sleep, afraid to let go, afraid. Afraid.

Though he was rarely angry, and never at Lathmar, Morlock was worse. As the days passed into months, his hand healed, he grew less pale. But while he was still bleeding he directed Wyrth in burying Lorn within the castle walls, carving the epitaph with his own hands: LORN: soldier and friend of Lathniar VII. And from the first day he took charge of the King's educationhe was grammarian, fencing master, and court sorcerer all in one.

"Ten thousand things you need to know I cannot teach you," he said to Lathmar. "The law of your empire is nothing I understand, for instance. But the language of the land where I was born, the secret speech as you miscall it, I can teach you that. There is much knowledge in that language, and many of your subjects are exiles from the Wardlands, as I am. I can teach you to defend yourself with a sword. And I can teach you the uses of the Sight within you-the skills of vision."

He was patient; he never lashed out at Lathmar as Ambrosia did. But he was terrifyingly unpredictable. Once, when Ambrosia cuffed Lathmar for some slight error (he never remembered what it was for, but the blow was nothing-the kitchen servants used to hit him harder to amuse themselves), Morlock stepped forward and threw his sister, his beloved sister, whom he rocked nightly to sleep in his arms (as she talked and talked and talked), against the wall and kicked her feet out from under her. Lathmar cowered, waiting for the Dark Man to turn on him, but it never happened. Ambrosia picked herself off the ground, laughed shortly, and said, "You'll soften him up, Morlock. His trouble is, he hasn't been beaten enough."

Morlock stared at her with his pale eyes until she turned away. She never hit Lathmar again.

Lathmar was not allowed to grow soft. Morlock, as fencing master, worked him until he literally fell over with exhaustion. Fencing, yes, endless mock combat, but always with a deadly point. The court fencing teacher had never been especially concerned with the King's proficiency, but Morlock and his apprentice casually assumed that Lathmar would, soon and often, be fighting for his life. Along with the necessary formality of thrust and parry they discussed the location of probably mortal wounds, weak spots in body armor, tactics when fighting more than one opponent. Lathmar balanced for hours on the ball of one foot while Morlock and Wyrth walked around him, tossing him a ball that he had to toss back without delay.

"Is this how Naevros taught you?" Lathmar demanded in a rare pause from exercises.

Morlock fixed him with a gray luminous glance, saying nothing.

"I …I had heard you were taught by Naevros syr Tol in …in the old time," Lathmar said.

"Naevros taught me the way of the sword," Morlock acknowledged finally. "There were some who said it was a waste of time-that a crookback would never learn. But he taught me so well that when the time came, I was able to kill him."

Lathmar was aghast, even more so when he saw the grief on Morlock's dark face. He had loved Naevros, it was clear, yet "when the time came," he had killed him. He loved his sister, had risked his life to save her, but he had thrown her about like a rag doll for no good reason. No one this man loved was safe, obviously; someday "the time" would come and Morlock would destroy them in turn. Maybe it was part of the curse that went with Tyrfing.

As a teacher in sorcery Morlock was even more demanding. The difficulty lay in the fact that seer-training did not consist of learning things. "We must strengthen your intuition, your inner voice," Morlock said. "Your perception, too, is coarsely material; we must liberate it. Push-ups won't help, nor noun-declensions."

What did help, it seemed, was an almost endless series of pranks. Lathmar would be told to go to a room and practice with a sword there for an hour; he would do so, then when it came to resheathe the blade he found it was not in his hands. It had never been: it was an illusion. Morlock's hand would leap off his arm and run like a rat into a hole in the wall. But on second glance Morlock's hand was as it had been, and there was no hole in the wall. Illusion. Or Lathmar would walk around a bend in the corridor and there stood the Lord Protector in full armor.

"Morlock!" he cried impatiently. "I don't have time for this now! I have to go steal some food."

"Who told you to?" the Protector inquired, in Morlock's voice.

"Wyrth. He said …" The King's voice trailed off. "It wasn't Wyrth."

The Lord Protector dissolved into Morlock. "How do you know?"

The King shrugged. It was partly a guess. But, as he thought back, there was something odd and …insubstantial about that Wyrth. "Wyrth never calls it stealing," Lathmar said finally.

Morlock's pale glance betrayed impatience. "Of course not. I used the word to suggest doubt in your mind. But you only just thought of it. There was something else, but you do not speak of it."

"I don't know how!" the King cried out.

Morlock was not displeased. He motioned for Lathmar to follow him.

Presently Lathmar found himself in an empty square chamber he had never entered before. Wyrth was there, sitting with his back against the wall opposite the door. He was also sitting next to the door. Lathmar glanced around the room: there were four Wyrths, each sitting with his back to a wall. Each one, as he met his eye, smiled and waved agreeably.

"Here is my apprentice," said the Dark Man, "and three simulacra we have crafted. You may get as close as you like to them, but do not actually touch them. Also, do not engage them in conversation. Go about the room and tell me what you perceive."

The King walked about the room. In a few moments he returned. "They are all different," he said, feeling helpless.

"But?" Morlock had a knack for spotting his unspoken reservations.

"But that one isn't alive," Lathmar said, pointing at the Wyrth sitting next to the door. "I don't know what it is."

Morlock reached down and tugged at the Wyrth's boot. He fell into a heap of shining cord, and Morlock deftly wrapped it up and stowed it in a bag in his belt.

"A physical shell," he explained. "The most difficult simulacrum to spot, if there is someone inside it. Tell me of the others."

"I think the real Wyrth is sitting opposite the door."

"I didn't ask you to find the real Wyrth," Morlock replied coldly, "though of course I expected you to try. Tell me of the others."

"That one"-Lathmar pointed at a Wyrth-"isn't there."

"What do you mean? Don't you see him?"

"Yes and no. I'm sure he's there. But I know he isn't. He …I feel him in my mind. But my eyes can't feel him."

Morlock nodded encouragingly, and the false Wyrth vanished. "A tal construct, projected directly into your mind. For the adept, the easiest of simulacra to spot: the talic halo is unmistakable, nothing like a real person or thing."

Lathmar slowly approached the Wyrth opposite. "This is the strangest of all," he whispered.

"Put your hand out," Morlock directed. "Touch it."

"Wait!" The Wyrth who had been sitting opposite the door got up and walked over. "Let me look at the thing for a few moments longer. God Creator! Master Morlock, it's wonderful."

Morlock grunted. "You would think so."

"That's not what I mean and you know it. Do you see what it is, Lathmar?"

"No."

"Keep on looking at it, then." Wyrth went over and doused the lamp in the middle of the room. Everything went dark-except the last simulacrum of Wyrth. It remained as bright as it had been, and lit the room like a candle.

"He built it," Wyrth said, coming over. "Took light from a window and carved this image in it."

"The process is more like weaving," Morlock corrected him. "Each mote of light must have a stable path, linked to others, or the image will dissolve."

Lathmar hesitantly put his hand out to touch the luminous image. There was no surface; his hand passed into it, and light splashed and foamed about his wrist. The image dimmed markedly as captive light motes left their paths. Within the simulacrum a small mechanism sat on the floor, with an upright armature that moved at intervals.

Wyrth lit the lamp again, and Morlock dispersed the simulacrum with a wave of his hands. He picked up the small machine and handed it to Wyrth. "This shifted the paths from time to time," he explained, "so that the figure could move."

Lathmar was struck by Wyrth's evident wonder. "Is the craft of Making difficult?" he asked. "Could I learn it?"

"No," said Morlock flatly. "You have no gift that way. Yet you may become a master seer, far greater than I am. If you were not king and emperor-to-be I would send you to New Moorhope in the Wardlands. But I can teach you much that you need to know, and in the end, the master trains himself. Enough for today. Perhaps you and Wyrth should go and `gather' some food after all. Don't forget grain for the crows." He walked off without a farewell to either of the others.

"He thinks more of those crows than he does of you or me!" Lathmar, stung, complained to Wyrth.

The dwarf grinned and shook his head. "But if you could carry messages to the city, like the crows do, that would impress him, certainly. We'll work on it, in your copious free time."

"Wyrth," the King whispered, as they descended the narrow hidden stairs that led toward the kitchens. "Why don't you call it `stealing' when we go to get food?"

"Because it's not," Wyrth said flatly. "This castle and all its contents are yours in law. Your `Protector' is the thief."

"I know," the King said patiently. "But …"

Wyrth looked back over his shoulder and grinned. "But you think there's something more?"

"Yes."

"You're right. I'm a dwarf. Stealing and lying are the two most serious offenses a dwarf can commit; they're even the same word in Dwarvish. I've done my share of both, I suppose, but I'm not as lighthearted about it as the Lady Ambrosia is."

"Morlock seems to feel about it almost as you do."

"He doesn't. He's just being civil-he was raised among dwarves, himself, so he knows how I feel."

"What was he like, back then?" the King wondered. He found it hard to believe Morlock had ever been young.

"Rosh takna. I don't know. Morlock was exiled from the Wardlands about the time Ambrosia married your ancestor, Uthar the Great. What is that, three hundred years ago? I'm not even a hundred fifty years old. A bit aged for an apprentice, but not old enough to remember Morlock's youth."

"Why do you stay an apprentice? I thought all dwarves wanted the title of Master Maker."

"I do," Wyrth acknowledged. "I suppose I should have demanded Mor lock release me and gone off as a journey-smith some time ago. That's the usual way: apprentice, journey-smith, master. But he wanders a lot, you know, so I'm effectively a journey-smith as long as I stay with him. It's when I leave him that I'll be ready to settle down somewhere as master of my own shop. Also, Morlock is the master of all makers. I could spend another century, or the rest of my life, in his service and still learn new things every day."

"Will you?"

"No," Wyrth admitted. "Someday I'll leave him. But not just yet. He needs me."

Lathmar summoned up a vision of Morlock's dark, pitiless, impassive face and shook his head.

Wyrth was not looking at him (the narrow stairway was slippery and difficult just there) but said, "I know what you think of him. And Ambrosia thinks the same-that he is unbreakable. But no one knows him as well as I do. And I know not only that he's breakable, but that he's broken. Morlock is just a ruin of the man he might have been, the man he probably was when he defeated the Sunkillers."

"What are the Sunkillers?"

"Ach. It was before I was born; I shouldn't have mentioned it. You'll have to ask one of the grown-ups." He glanced over his shoulder again, and this time his expression was embarrassed-almost ashamed. "Don't say that I mentioned it."

Stealing food was fun, and the King was pretty good at it. He had, of course, often done it before, when he was hungry and he didn't want to face the kitchen servants' insults. The trick was to not take too much of any one thing-to make your pillage blend in with the casual looting that went on in any pantry. And always, of course, to enter and leave unobserved. The castle's pantries were large, and most of them had some sort of discreet access to the hidden passages, which it was the King's business to know (and the servants' business to not know, or pretend they didn't know). Wyrth and he, when they went together, took turns foraging in the pantry; the other was to guard their pile of loot, on the off chance that someone would happen by in the passage they were using.

At least it had always seemed like an off chance. But that afternoon, as the King sat on a step, kicking his heels and eating a piece of cheese, a hand gripped his collar and yanked him into the air.

"What's this?" a strange voice snarled in his ear. "City brats sneaking around in the castle walls? If-"

The King gritted his teeth and kicked the man holding him from behind as hard as he could, trying to aim the blow between the other's legs. He apparently succeeded well enough: with a roar of anger the man threw him against a wall. The world went dim for a moment or two. When he returned to himself the man (a Protector's Man: the red lion rampant on the man's black tunic) was bent over, gasping, staring at him with recognition dawning on his face.

"You're-" he began.

But then Wyrth was there, his arms full of plunder. He dropped the stuff and stepped between the King and the Protector's Man. He kicked one of the soldier's knees, which gave with an audible crunch, and grabbed him by the throat as he sprawled. The dwarf efficiently broke the man's neck, and then turned to Lathmar. "Are you all right?" he asked calmly.

Lathmar stared at the dead man. "Better than him," he said finally.

"Traitorous bastard," Wyrth remarked, as if discussing the weather.

"Because he wanted an afternoon snack!" the King exclaimed.

"No." Wyrth, puzzled but patient, pointed at the emblem on the man's tunic. "Because of that. Because he took up arms against his sovereign."

"Well, I'm not much of a sovereign."

"I didn't mean you. Lathmar, I'm not much on practical politics-you'll have to go to the Lady Ambrosia for that-but there is no real chance that Urdhven would have made a move against his brother-in-law-your fatherif he hadn't had a private army sworn to his service. This thing and others like him are responsible for your parents' deaths. He'd gladly have been responsible for yours. Don't waste too much pity on him."

"How much is too much?"

"Anything at all. We'll have to haul him out of here-do you want to carry the corpse or the food?"

Lathmar thought of Lorn. "The food," he said swiftly.

Wyrth nodded and casually swung the body of the man he had killed over his shoulder. "I can keep him up here with one hand," he said, "so if you need me to carry anything…."

"I'll manage," the King said faintly.

They brought the corpse and the food to Merlin's children, who were sitting with their heads together, making plans. Plans had been proposed and dismissed at the rate of several a day, and those were only the ones the King happened to hear his elders talking about. He paid them no attention. They would no doubt tell him what they wanted him to do when they wanted him to do it, just as his elders always had. Till then, the future was their problem.

"Hm," said Morlock, glancing at the body. "Save the clothes. Toss the body down a privy shaft."

"I thought you were going to suggest giving it to your crows," Ambrosia said tauntingly.

Morlock shrugged. "Draw too much attention," he muttered, as if he had already considered the idea. "Lathmar: wait."

Lathmar turned, defiantly. He was prepared to strip the body of the Protector's Man and dispose of it in the sewer-that was a matter of survival. If Morlock expected him to butcher a human body for the benefit of their feathered friends, he intended to rebel.

So he was taken off guard when Morlock asked him, "Can you sew?"

"What?"

"Do you know how to sew?" Morlock asked again.

"With a thread and needle, you mean?"

"Yes."

"No," said Lathmar slowly.

"`Not yet,' you mean," Wyrth corrected. "What's up, Ambrosii? A plan?"

"The beginnings," Ambrosia said. "You had better teach Lathmar how to sew. Morlock's teaching me. We'll need a large amount of red silk, alsothere should be acres of the stuff in the storerooms, as it's the imperial color. But offhand I can't remember if there are any passages leading directly to those rooms, so stealing it might be a little more difficult than our grocery trips have been."

"There goes your copious free time, Your Majesty," Wyrth remarked. "We'll start right after we dispose of the body."

His Majesty stoically deposited the food on the floor and helped Wyrth drag off the corpse.

Thereafter sewing and silk stealing were part of the curriculum. Silk stealing was exciting at first, as it involved a trip through the open corridors. But soon they found that practically no one visited that portion of the castle, so that, if anything, those raids were more humdrum than a trip to the pantries.

Sewing wasn't as much fun as hearing and translating the old songs and stories Morlock and Wyrth and even sometimes Ambrosia told him when he was working on the secret speech. It wasn't as annoying, though, as Morlock's repeated attempts to shock his mind into Sight, nor nearly as hard work as the sword practice. And it was rather companionable to sit with his elders, as he and Ambrosia struggled with some new stitch and Morlock and Wyrth folded paper models of four-dimensional objects, or discussed the casting of gemstones, or simply reminisced of centuries long past. (Wyrth might be less than one hundred fifty years old, and so a mere youngster to the Ambrosii, but he could speak for and about his forbears with dwarvish ease.)

It was at times like these that Lathmar (as long as he kept up with his sewing-and, in fact, he was better at it than Ambrosia was, with her wounded hands) could sometimes get a question answered. For instance, he might ask, "Why do the descendants of exiles dream about the Wardlands?" or "Why did Lathmar the Old leave the Vraidish homelands?" and one or the other of the oldsters would tell the tale-usually Ambrosia or Wyrth, with laconic additions and observations by Morlock.

The danger that lived in the blood of Ambrose was never far away, though. Once, when they had been working on the sewing project for some time (perhaps a month), Lathmar asked, "Who are the Sunkillers?"

Morlock did not answer, but turned to glare at Wyrth, a snarl on his dark face.

Wyrth was undaunted. "Master Morlock, I've obeyed your orders and told no tale."

"How does he know that name?"

"I mentioned it once. I told him to ask you or Ambrosia about it."

Morlock clenched his teeth, too angry to speak.

"The world calls you traitor and monster," Wyrth remarked quietly in the charged silence. His voice was as level as ever, but it occurred to Lathmar that he was annoyed, even angry. "And I say nothing to this: canyon keep the world, anyway. But why may Lathmar not know the truth?"

"There is no truth!" shouted Morlock.

Wyrth rolled his eyes and spoke a guttural syllable that Lathmar suspected was a Dwarvish obscenity. "You can believe that if you like. I don't," he added.

"The Sunkillers," Ambrosia remarked, as if the exchanges between Morlock and his apprentice had not taken place, "were a group of beings from beyond the northern edge of the world."

Lathmar's jaw dropped. "The world really has a northern edge?"

"Yes. Most people would have to answer by hearsay, but I was actually there once. The Sunkillers had taken an interest in our world and intended to conquer it. Or rather, before Morlock steps in to correct me, to cleanse it. Evidently they considered life of our fecund mortal kind a sort of disease infecting an otherwise appealing world. They affected the rays of the sun so that the temperature of the world dropped considerably. Life would have ceased, and I don't mind telling you, Lathmar, I would have found that inconvenient. So I recruited a young fellow at the court of your namesake, Lathmar the Old, and my brother (who had been useful to me in the past). Wyrth's father, Deor, insisted on accompanying Morlock. The four of us passed through the northern wilderness where men may not dwell (and even Deor and I found it uncomfortable) to the edge of the world. There Morlock crossed the Soul Bridge and fought with the champion of the Sunkillers. He killed him and destroyed the Soul Bridge from the far side. Then we brought him back to the world by methods you may someday learn, if your education in the craft of Seeing progresses considerably farther than it has."

Lathmar could not goggle any further, but neither could he speak. No one spoke. Morlock stood and limped away, and there was silence for some time.

Eventually Lathmar stuttered, "Why …? Why …?"

"He hates the story," Ambrosia explained, "because it was the beginning of the end of the only life he cared about. He was a vocate in the Graith of Guardians, a hero of sorts in the Wardlands. Wyrth could tell you stories, no doubt, and even I know a few. He was married to a woman he loved-the only one he has ever loved (may she be damned for a poisonous bitch). He lost all that and had to go into exile."

"Because …"

"There was something involving one of the other Guardians-Morlock either killed him or prevented him from being killed; I never got the story straight. But the real reason was that the Graith, or at least some of its senior members, had an arrangement with the Sunkillers. The rest of the world would be frozen, but the Wardlands would not be harmed. I don't know if they had reason to suppose they would be spared, or if they were just dupes. Morlock wouldn't have stood for it either way. So when Morlock defeated their plans they had him exiled: he'd put something else before the safety of the realm. They call that treason over there."

"Is that why your father Merlin was exiled?" Lathmar asked.

"No. He was actually a traitor. Had I been a member of the Graith I would simply have killed him-but that was all before I was born, or even conceived, so I'm rather glad none of them had my forceful independent character."

"You were born in exile?"

"Yes-like you, young Lathmar. But my mother was already pregnant with Morlock when Merlin was exiled, so the Graith graciously allowed her to give birth and dump the child on an unfortunate stepfamily before departing the country."

"I thought you were older than Morlock."

Ambrosia turned her iron-gray glance at him, and he stuttered helplessly until she smiled and said, "I look older, I know. But Morlock was born in the Wardlands and grew to manhood there. That changes you, somehow: either the land itself or the magical wards they use to guard the place. My father was a thousand years old when I was born, but I'll never live that long. None of my descendants has lived nearly as long as me-although, of course, I didn't marry an exile. Have you any other imprudent questions, Lathmar? Would you be interested in knowing whether I was the mistress of Lathmar the Old before I married his son, Uthar the Great?"

"No, madam," said Lathmar VII, with perfect honesty.

"Any prudent questions, then? This seems to be the moment when they will be answered with more than two or three gnomic syllables."

"Well ……Lathmar began, cleared his throat, and began again. "What is it we are making with all this sewing?"

With gnomic brevity Wyrth replied, "A dragon."

The next day there were no lessons of any kind. "Morlock's drunk," the dwarf said harshly, and Lathmar laughed, thinking Wyrth was joking. (They never bothered to steal wine; that would mean a trip to the palace cellars, far from any secret passage and extremely well guarded.) Lathmar looked at the dwarf and waited for him to continue the joke, but he didn't. He turned away without saying anything and left Lathmar to his own devices.

CHAPTER TWELVE NEWS FROM INUARNA

Genjandro shouldered his way into the wineshop. A serving maid turned to greet him, then started back when she saw his face.

You'll look like a big ugly bruiser in this one. So had said the note from Wyrth, attached to the threadlike coil of the simulacrum Genjandro wore. But don't get in any fights. The simulacrum changes the way you look completely, but it's only a Seeming. You'll be no stronger than you really are.

And it was true. Genjandro had wrapped the Seeming around himself and was transformed into the ugliest hulking dockyard thug he had ever seen …but when he tried to lift something that was normally too heavy for him, it was still too heavy.

No matter. No one wanted to make trouble for Genjandro-thug. In fact, everyone was impressed with the soft-spoken menace in his tone …although the exact same tone impressed no one when he was wearing his own face.

He trundled over to the bar and slapped down a silver coin. "Gimme the hot stuff," he rasped. Not being a customer of slimy vomit-pits like this one, he hadn't thought up this line: a note from Morlock had suggested it. (Genjandro suspected Morlock had more experience in such places than he himself did. In the seven or so months that Morlock had stayed at Genjandro's not once had he seen the man drink anything stronger than water. So Morlock either avoided strong drink on some religious or ethical principle-to Genjandro, he didn't seem the type-or he refrained because he knew that he would drink to excess if he drank at all. He did seem like that type; he had the clenched weariness of what Genjandro's blessed mother used to call "a dry drunk." But Genjandro had never mentioned the matter, nor had anyone else in his hearing.) The same demand got him a different brew of sewage in every hellhole he went in. But apparently it was something someone with his present appearance would be expected to say: he got a lot of nasty drinks, but never a raised eyebrow.

He gulped a mouthful of the "hot stuff," belched an appreciative spray of the same, and said to the barkeep, "I'm drinking up and getting out."

"Oh?" said the barkeep, in a carefully neutral tone. Genjandro read him exactly. He was not much interested in anything Genjandro had to say, but he was reluctant to indicate this to anyone so obviously dangerous as Genjandro appeared to be.

"Chaos, yes," Genjandro said. "One drink in every shop around the Great Market, and then I'm getting out. Probably never see the place again."

"Settling down somewhere?" inquired the barkeep quietly. Genjandro saw suspicion settling on his features. He was wondering if Genjandro was an informer of the Protector's, trying to stir up a little talk of treason. It wasn't an unreasonable fear. Genjandro had met a number of Protector's Men-or aspirants to that noble title-on such missions, sneaking around the market or sniffing along the docks.

"Hell, no," Genjandro protested. "I'm not the settling kind. And if I was, I'd settle right here-in the greatest city in the world, with the greatest ruler, Morlock rip my nose off if it ain't so."

"Hear, hear," said the barkeep tepidly. He seemed to understand Genjandro's comment in exactly the sense it was intended-as a disclaimer of any political intent.

"No-I'll be around," Genjandro said, trying to sound wistful. "But the city she won't. Not after the dragons get through with her."

That got the attention of everyone in the place.

"Whatcha mean dragons, chief?" someone asked him, in a conversational tone.

"I mean big damn dragons from the Blackthorn Range," Genjandro said flatly. He took another slurp of "hot stuff," snorted back the snot which the poisonous brew had set to flowing from his nose, and said, "They took Sarkunden the other day."

"What?" shouted the barkeep, and everyone in the place leapt to their feet. Sarkunden was the biggest city between Ontil and the eastern border. Farther east lay the Blackthorns, with their mysterious deadly dragons.

"You're a frigging liar, ugluk," said someone behind his back.

He turned with exaggerated slowness and looked curiously about. No one stood forth to identify himself as the speaker. Genjandro shrugged generously. "So you're thinking: they'd'a told us if the dragons took Sarkunden; u'e'd'a heard." He spat on the floor and winked. "But we don't hear much they don't want us to hear-do we?"

It was true, in a way. The empire was separating into armed duchies, each one led by the local military commander. The Protector was their titular head, but he was having trouble getting the other commanders to follow his lead. They said that if the Protector had killed the last heir of Uthar the Great (as rumor claimed) then they were absolved of their allegiance. Possibly some of them had imperial ambitions of their own. Travel between the various great centers was discouraged; passports were required; news had slowed to a trickle or (from some regions) had stopped entirely.

"Then how'd you hear?" the barkeep inquired.

It was the question he'd been waiting for. He turned back to the barkeep and said, "Well, I got a friend."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Anyway, I had one. He was a Protector's Man, pretty high up, rode the post between here and Sarkunden. Our Protector's been writing a lot to Sarkunden; I don't know if you know."

The barkeep made a face. It was hard to keep away from politics these days. But it was widely believed that the commander of the Sarkunden garrison-a cousin of the Protector's on his mother's side-would eventually acknowledge the leadership of the Protector, once they came to terms.

"Anyway," Genjandro continued, "this guy gets to Sarkunden pretty often-two or three times a month. They first heard the dragons were out of the Blackthorns a couple months ago-one of them Anhikh cities got hit."

"Oh?"

"That was exactly what I said-exactly like that: 'Oh?' Screw them Anhikh guys. Who do they think they are, anyway? Then the dragons turned west, though. They took one of our towns on the border, Invarna."

"You're sure about this?" the barkeep asked doubtfully.

"Hey," Genjandro shouted to the room at large, "when was the last time any of you guys heard any news from Invarna?"

It turned out none of them had heard anything recently from Invarna. The same would likely have been true of any random group of people in Ontil on any given day in any given year, and they all knew it. But somehow the fact became freighted with ill omen: no news from Invarna …

"It's not so far from there to Sarkunden, and the dragons got closer every day: killing and stealing and …well, dragons eat a lot, you know."

Everyone knew that. And everyone knew what they ate by preference: other dragons, or dwarves, or men and women.

"The last time my friend comes back from Sarkunden the dragons are actually in the city, and the garrison commander, he's writing the Protector, begging him for help. And the Protector he writes back." Genjandro winked. "I read the letter."

There was a general snort of derision. "Read this letter," the barkeep said dismissively, pointing at something under the bar.

"It's pretty easy to lift the seal off a letter," Genjandro pointed out patiently. "My friend, he used to do it all the time with a hot wire. He wanted to know what was going on. Wouldn't you?"

There was some grudging agreement to this, and Genjandro continued. "Anyway, the Protector writes back how he can't see coming to the aid of a rebel military commander-but if the general and his troops were to take an oath to him, become Protector's Men, then maybe they could work something out. Smart move." Genjandro smacked his lips, glanced at his nearly empty cup, and repeated distantly, "Smart move."

The barkeep quietly filled Genjandro's cup with "hot stuff." Genjandro took a mouthful, wiped his mouth, and said fiercely, "Or it woulda been a smart move. If the guy he'd been writing to was still alive. Which I don't think he was. My friend, he never came back from that last trip to Sarkunden. Now the Protector can't get anyone else to go, and no one's sure how soon they'll get here. But they'll get here. If they liked Sarkunden, they'll like Ontil that much more."

"Scut," said the barkeep-not as if he really disbelieved what Genjandro was saying, but as if he wished he could.

"I think it's true," said a little fellow with the stained hands of a dyer. "I was talking to a Kaenish merchant, and he told me about the Anhikh cityhe said he'd talked to someone who'd seen it after the dragons left."

Genjandro nodded with a certain satisfaction. After all, he himself (in another simulacrum, in another wineshop) had been the fat Kaenish merchant who had told the dyer about the fictitious Anhikh city; he was glad the little fellow had learned his lesson so well. But he was even more gratified when someone he had never seen before claimed to have heard about the dragon attack on Sarkunden from someone else. If true, it meant that the rumors he was so diligently spreading were taking on their own life in the city.

"It's those damn Ambrosii!" someone shouted, and there was a rumble of agreement. Nothing was beyond the Ambrosii, Morlock in particular: a thousand folktales assured them of that.

The words spoken represented Genjandro's greatest fear about the plan Morlock and Ambrosia were undertaking. He had written desperately to them, begging them not to threaten the city with the fear of dragons and fire. It will give the Protector a chance to portray himself as the hero of Ontil, and you as its ultimate villains, he had written, in part of a long letter which was carried to the Ambrosii (as usual) by a crow. Their response, in full, had been Yes. He did not understand it. But in the end, because the King wrote to him directing him to obey them, he did their bidding.

"Or maybe," he said, into a silence in the uncertain crowd, "the dragons aren't scared of Ontil, now that the Ambrosii are gone? The dwarves call both of them rokhleni, dragonkillers……

He convinced no one. In fact, he felt that he had broken his character a little. But at least he had stopped that sudden movement of anger toward the King's true protectors. "Anyway," he said, and paused to down the rest of his cup. (He managed to spill most of it down the sides of his face-it stung a little, but better that than drinking the stuff.) "Anyway, here's to Venhudnal, best damn Protector's Man since the Protector himself. Now I'm off to hit a few more places, then head across the big water. They say the dragons are afraid of the big water." He headed for the door, a little more unsteadily than he had come in. No one seemed sorry to see him go, but he heard a gratifying hum of conversation in his wake.

Outside he headed for the nearest alley and shoved his finger up his throat until he vomited. He had more wineshops to visit and more tales to tell before the night was out; he didn't want to be incoherent. Then he carefully unwound the Seeming of Genjandro the thug and stowed it in his wallet. There was no risk of him being seen, in the utterly lightless alley, but that meant that he had to work very carefully, since he couldn't see what he was doing.

He drew another threadlike spool of Seeming out of his wallet. As usual there was a note attached, but of course he couldn't read it in the dark; he kept it by in case it had useful information. He wound the new Seeming about himself and stepped out into the dim light of the Great Market at night.

The note, which he read by the light streaming from the nearby wineshop, was in Wyrth's handwriting: You'll be a little cuter in this one. But don't let anyone pick you up until you've spread a few rumors, eh?

Genjandro glanced down at the improbable expanse of barely contained cleavage which was one noticeable feature of his new Seeming. "Most amusing," he said sourly, and wondered what sort of voice he should attempt to use with this appearance. Thinking dark thoughts he trudged off to serve his sovereign, Lathmar VII, in the peculiar way that Fate and the Ambrosii, between them, had devised.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN HEROES AND VILLAINS

One evening Steng awoke from a nap to find a message from his true master lying in the fireplace of his apartment. They often appeared there, in his own peculiar handwriting, after he had been sleeping. The message said simply, A dragon has been seen in the woods north of the city. Warn Urdhven: it is a sending of the Amhrosii. There was no signature, of course: none was needed.

He scrolled up the message and stuck it into a fold of his tunic. Hurrying through the corridors, he found Lord Protector Urdhven consulting with Vost over a large stone table covered with maps in the room that had formerly been the Emperor's council chamber.

"My Lord Urdhven," Steng said without preliminary, "a dragon has been seen in the woods between the city and the Whitethorn Range."

"Old news, Steng," Vost crowed vengefully. "We've been plotting the dragon's progress from Anhi with these maps, and the intelligence collected by my men."

"Hm. Perhaps if you deployed a great many of your men the aggregate intelligence might amount to something significant."

While Vost was working this out, Steng continued, "But I don't suppose Vost's men have told you that the dragon is a sending of the Ambrosii."

"It is?" Urdhven was eager to believe it. "How do you know? Can you be sure?" Vost gazed at him woundedly.

Since Vost was not looking at him for the moment, Steng made an arcane gesture and said, "Very sure."

"Oh." Urdhven's enthusiasm cooled. "Excellent. But you have nothing we can announce as proof?"

"Not yet. Is proof needed?"

"We can hope so. Look here, Steng, the dragons left the Blackthorns some months ago and savaged a number of Anhikh cities. Among them have been named Menebacikhukh and Sekntepaphonokhai."

"That's easy for you to say."

"Knock off the jaded witticisms and look at the map! Menebacikhukh and Sekntepaphonokhai are due east of Invarna, which is just on our side of the Anhikh border. Now Invarna is the one town in the empire we are fairly sure has been struck by the dragons."

"I heard a circumstantial rumor that Sarkunden had been taken."

"No, that's just a rumor. I'm in daily communication with the garrison there."

"With respect, Lord Urdhven, you miss my point. If we have circumstantial rumors about Sarkunden which we know are false, are we not in danger of being taken in by rumors about places where our information is less current? Why do we think Invarna has been taken, not to mention-those Anhikh places?"

"We never know much about what goes on in Anhi. But no one has heard from Invarna in months."

"Eh, Lord Urdhven, when does one ever hear from Invarna?"

"Look at the pattern, man! From Menebacikhukh to Sekntepaphonokhai, from Sekntepaphonokhai to Invarna, from Invarna to here. The dragons are headed due west to the Gap of Lone-they must plan some sort of action against the Wardlands."

Steng was genuinely dismayed. "Death and Justice! I hope you're wrong!"

"Oh?" Urdhven's voice was oily and dangerous.

"Yes indeed. If the dragons attempt an invasion of the Wardlands, the Graith of Guardians is likely to meet them in force before they cross the border. That would mean a war between the dragons and the powers of the Wardlands in our territory. There might be nothing left alive between the Grartan Range and the Inner Sea!"

"Nonsense, Steng. No one has that kind of power."

"Eh, Lord Urdhven, those-who-know fear the Wardlands. Well, we can do nothing about that, if it is so. But, remember, the unnamed tells us that the dragon north of the city is a sending of the Ambrosii."

"Exactly!" Urdhven said. "Perhaps a rogue dragon drawn off from the herd-"

"The guile, my lord. We say `guile of dragons'-like a pride of lions, or a murder of crows."

Urdhven's glance showed that he was thinking of murder of a different sort, and Steng fell silent. "The Ambrosii have skills we know nothing of," the Lord Protector continued, "and ancient ties to the dragons of the Blackthorn Range. They may have managed to draw off a rogue dragon from the herd to spread terror and death in the city."

"For what purpose, my Lord Protector?"

"To discredit my rule. To weaken the city against an assault from outside. Sheer malice."

Steng reserved his true opinion and said, "Three excellent reasons, Lord Urdhven. I am well answered. Then you hope to defeat the dragon and gain credit from it, as the city's defender?"

Urdhven seemed to relax a little: his loyal poisoner was again performing as expected. "Yes. What do you think of the plan?"

"I hope you never have a chance to put it into practice, my Lord Protector. The city is perpetually in danger of burning down as it is, without a dragon putting down in the Great Market. But I think that a set of patrols within the city would do a great deal of good-a dragon watch, as it were. People are very near panic with all these rumors."

"We could design a special banner for the dragon watch," Vost broke in. "That way people would know at a glance of the Protector's care for them."

"Hm. Not bad," Steng conceded grudgingly. "Really an excellent idea. These dragon rumors may ultimately be to the Protector's advantage. The Ambrosii are an invisible menace, as long as they remain in hiding, but everyone can understand the threat of a dragon, and the need of a strong leader to oppose it."

"The ultimate benefit will accrue if I can kill the dragon myself," Urdhven said coolly. "I want all the help you can give me-ointments, spells, advice."

"Eh, my lord, I know very little about dragons."

"Then find out. One of my ancestors killed a dragon once, if the songs don't lie. In any case, dragons have been killed. Find out how, and by whom. What they did, I can do."

Steng took this as a dismissal, bowed low, and turned away. As he went back to his chamber he found he felt a new touch of admiration for Urdhven. To face a dragon took some nerve-whatever you said about the Lord Protector, he was not deficient in courage. He was right about the political advantage, too-it was amazing what slime people would swallow when it was offered them by a hero. But Steng still hoped it would never happen: the thought of fire abroad in the city terrified him.

The crisis that Urdhven longed for and Steng feared came five days later. Toward evening, a red-gold dragon appeared in the north and swooped over the watch at the Lonegate of Ambrose. Then it followed the line of the wall south and west, as word of the dragon's advent spread through the palace and the city.

Urdhven's plans were ready. Virtually all the Protector's Men in Ambrose were ordered into the streets as Dragon Watchmen-Urdhven didn't want any of the politically doubtful City Legion gaining any glory from this fight against the dragon. The City Legion could stay behind to watch the walls and keep Ambrose from looters-he was tolerably sure there was no external military force near enough to threaten the city. He himself took Vost and the trembling Steng and rode posthaste for the Great Market. It was centrally located, so that he could ride from there to any part of the city where the dragon came to ground. And it was not unlikely the dragon would choose to land there: it was the most open place in the city, and around it was the greatest concentration of wealth, not excluding the treasure rooms of Ambrose itself.

Urdhven's guess was a good one (in fact, it was Steng's), but it was not at the Great Market that the dragon first set down in the city.

Genjandro had always hated politics. He had wanted one thing out of life: to make so much money that he would be immune from the pushing and shoving of the pettily powerful. And he had been well on his way when he had somehow been drafted into the cause of the little King. Then one thing followed another, and now he was about to set fire to a large fortune in Kaenish rugs-his biggest warehouse on the west side of the city.

"Irreplaceable!" he muttered. "Not just the money-works of art! Gone up in smoke! All for a deranged plan that hasn't half a halting chance at success. Madness!"

But this was merely reflex. He was not really a merchant anymore, or even a civilian. He was a soldier in the war against the Lord Protector. He would grumble and he would do as he was told. And when he died, whether it was soon or late, he wouldn't have to tell himself, There was nothing I could do! The oppressor was too strong! To hell with that. He would do what he could do. He would do all that three men could do. He would fight the oppressor in any way possible, even if he didn't understand it. What Urdhven was, what he would do to Genjandro's city and Genjandro's people, that Genjandro did understand.

The dragon passed overhead, its birdlike shadow outlined in the red light of sunset on the building next door. The shadow appeared again, facing the other way, and slowly settled down, merging with the shadow of the warehouse itself. A faint scraping (if that) was all that told Genjandro a dragon had landed on his roof.

Genjandro hesitated. He could not quite believe this was happening, and belief was not helped when he saw the dragon's red serpentine head appear in the window. The face was tilted sideways, and the dragon's face was split by what appeared to be a grin.

The dragon was there-and he was not. Genjandro saw the red-gold serpentine scales, the bloodred fiery eyes, heard the heavy breathing, smelled the venomous smoke. And he knew he could not be seeing what he was seeing.

"Which one are you?" he whispered. "Which one is controlling the illusion? How …? How …

Then he heard, or thought he heard, a caw. Suddenly it was all very funny. He snickered as he plunged the torch into several stacks of rugs. The dragon roared obligingly and withdrew its serpentine head. Genjandro went on spreading fire through his warehouse and then ran down into the street screaming.

"The dragon!" he shrieked. "The dragon burned my warehouse! Help! Call the Dragon Watch! The dragon is in the city!"

Moments later the street was full of screaming people and Genjandro's work was done. He stayed to fight the fire and spread rumors in the crowd. But when the fire was out and the crowd turned to looting, Genjandro fled from the ruined warehouse. By then the sky was full of storm clouds, drawing a premature curtain of dusk across the city. There was a red glow over the high crooked horizon to the east.

Meanwhile the Lord Protector, Vost, and Steng had reached the Great Market and were waiting there with three cohorts of Protector's Men, luminous in their new uniforms as Dragon Watchmen.

Urdhven was filled with a feeling of supreme confidence. This, he knew somehow, was his hour, when none could defeat him.

He wore heavy plate armor, and his charger, too, was armored. The metal was treated with a sticky bloodlike stuff that Steng said would resist fire. "But," he had said, "I can find nothing which will protect you from the dragon's venom, so I warn you to avoid the beast's breath at all costs."

Urdhven had grunted. "Have you no better advice than that?"

"Yes," Steng had replied. "I should bait him-tempt him to expel fire at you and then retreat."

"Why?"

"Because whatever the source for a dragon's fire and venom, it cannot be inexhaustible. There must be at least a moment when it will be exhausted, as you or I would be if we expelled our lungs without replenishing them. That will be the moment for you to turn and attack."

"Excellent, Steng-really excellent," Urdhven had approved. "So I'll do in fact. I'll remember you for this."

"And I you, my Lord," Steng had replied, with unfeigned admiration. Remembering this, Urdhven's heart swelled with pride. It would be all right. He would defeat the dragon and save the city. He would be the kind of ruler the empire had not seen in centuries, the founder of a new dynasty, Urdhven the Great….

The sky above was dark with storm clouds; Urdhven looked up and saw the dragon soar into view, breathtakingly beautiful, red-gold against blueblack, his destiny incarnate.

"Land! Land!" Urdhven whispered intently, and the dragon, almost as if it had heard, wheeled in the air and settled down in the middle of the Great Market.

"Vost!" Urdhven cried. "Leave it to me! If I fall, you will attack with the Dragon Watchmen. Afterward, do as Steng will advise you. Do you hear me?"

"I hear and will obey, my lord," cried Vost, and raised his sword in salute, his eyes wide with admiration.

Urdhven spurred his heavy steed to a lumbering gallop, dashing before the front line of the Dragon Watchmen. As one they raised their swords and shouted his name. He raised his hand in acknowledgement, then wheeled aside to face the dragon.

It sat there on all fours, its wings folded back, regarding him with a fixed gaping look-almost like a grin. He drew his sword and flourished it, shouting a challenge, then charged straight at the beast.

It reared up, lifting its wings forward and aloft, then back again as it inhaled a mighty breath. At the last moment Urdhven jerked the reins and swerved his horse aside, swinging back in a long curving path toward the place where he had begun his charge. A storm of red obscuring light followed him, but never reached him, as the dragon roared.

When the dragon ceased roaring and the tide of red light receded, he sheathed his sword and swung his steed about, unsheathing his lance and setting it at rest. Then he charged directly at the dragon, positioning the spear for a deathblow in the narrow scaly chest.

With terrible clarity, he saw the dragon rear up again, throwing its wings aloft and forward and then back as it inhaled. He had left it too longretreated too far. The dragon would roar again before he could strike. But the dragon would die, too-momentum would carry him on and he would pierce the dragon's heart. At worst, his cohorts of armed men standing by would be able to finish off the wounded dragon.

True, he would be dead, but at that transcendent moment it hardly mattered. He would die for the empire he had killed so many to rule, and perhaps one day men still might refer to him as Urdhven the Great….

The dragon roared, and all Urdhven's thoughts drowned in the red light. He knew only the need to ride forward, to strike, to kill the beast that was killing him. He didn't even feel any heat.

But there was no shock of contact, only a strange tearing sound and his horse stumbled. He fell into darkness and the sense of inexplicable failure.

When he lifted his head he saw that he and his horse were tangled in a huge swath of scarlet silk. Near at hand he saw his spear, still protruding from the rent it had made in the great silken shape that was collapsing as he watched. And from the tear were pouring black birds―dozens of crows, hundreds of them, thousands, murder upon murder of crows….

Where is my dragon? he almost cried aloud, like a plaintive child whose favorite toy has been taken away, but just then he realized: this was his dragon. This silken puppet moved by crows, gilded with illusory magic that was now dispelled, this was his dragon.

He knew now exactly what had happened, exactly how he had been tricked by those damned Ambrosii and his own hopes. He knew what he must do, before it was too late. But he took a moment to mourn his boyish dreams of heroism. He would never be able to indulge them again; he would always remember this time when they had played him false. A man who had murdered his sister and his liege lord to gain power had no business to be dreaming of heroism, anyway. Perhaps he would never be Urdhven the Great, the people's hero. Perhaps he would be Urdhven the Terrible. At any rate, he would be Urdhven I, Emperor of this damned empire, if he had to wade in blood to do it. And this defeat was in a way an opportunity, for now, after all these months, he knew just where his enemies were.

Sullenly he got to his feet. His charger seemed to have broken its leg when it fell, so he killed it with his sword. Then he walked over to where Steng and Vost awaited him, their faces carefully expressionless.

"Get down, Steng!" he shouted impatiently. "I need your horse. We ride to Ambrose, as fast as may be."

The poisoner dismounted, and the Protector ascended to his saddle. "Tell the Companions of Mercy I will need them," Urdhven commanded Steng. "Any Dragon Watch-any Protector's Men you see, send them to me at the City Gate of Ambrose." He rode away without waiting for a reply, and Vost and the other soldiers followed him out of the Great Market.

The captains of the City Legion were gathered, with many of their men, in the audience hall of Ambrose. They had all received anonymous messages to assemble there at this hour and day, and they had all been forbidden by the Protector to engage in the fight against the dragon. Some were absent. A few had taken to the street to fight the dragon, their sense of duty overriding their (obviously politically motivated) orders. Others had declined to appear, fearing this anonymous summons was an invitation to another purge, like the one that had left most of the loyal servants of Ambrose dead. This possibility was on the minds of those who had chosen to appear as well: all of them bore arms and armor. They would not be purged without a fight.

They waited in vain for the Protector. But presently one of his henchmen appeared, fully armored, in the hated black surcoat with its red lion rampant.

A rumble of dissatisfaction arose from the assembled soldiers. The arrogance of it! One Protector's Man, in battle-scarred armor and a dirty surcoat, to address the pride of the City Legion!

The Protector's Man was arrogant indeed, speaking to no one, swaggering up the long hall to the dais and the imperial throne. Then he sat down on the throne itself and drew his sword, putting it across his knees like a sovereign about to deliver the high justice.

There was a shout of protest, and some of the Legionaries leaped forward to pull the Protector's Man off the throne. But before they could reach him he took off his helmet and tossed it down the long hallway. And what they saw then caused all the soldiers to grow silent and still.

"Come on, then!" Ambrosia shouted, her iron-gray hair settling about her shoulders. "Haul me down and hail me about, and when the Protector returns from his dragon hunt, as he will do shortly, he'll reward you as richly as he can. He might even let you transfer to his new guards-you, too, might wear this proud uniform!" And she tore the surcoat with her left hand and cast it down on the stairs of the dais.

There was silence in the hall. Ambrosia waited and waited, and finally she smiled. "You're lacking in ambition, that's your problem," she said confidingly. "You still think your oath has meaning-that loyalty and honor can have any use or purpose in the bright new tomorrow our Protector promises us. What fools you are! You stand there gaping, when any one of you could make your fortune by climbing this dais and striking off my head!"

Another long pause. None of the Legionaries spoke or moved; they hardly breathed.

"Or is it the other way around?" Ambrosia asked quietly (yet somehow the words went to every corner of the room). "Is it the others, so swift to shake off their allegiance, so ready to follow a kin-slaying traitor, is it they who are the fools? Fools to oppose me, certainly. I won't pretend to know every one of you, but every one of you here knows me. It was I and my brother who went to the edge of the world to defy the Sunkillers. It was I who stemmed the tide of the Khroi at the Battle of Sarkunden. It was I who carried the banner of Uthar into the breach at Vakhnhal. You remember how I led the troops of this empire to victory again and again. Uthar my consort is gone, but I remain, the greatest general and leader of armed cohorts since the old time. Those who threaten me or my descendants, the rightful emperors of Ontil, will go down in death and defeat. So it has always been and so it will be today.

"I come to you for one reason and one reason alone. You have watched this thing, this crawling traitor, this Urdhven, with as much disgust as I. You have not joined with him-or you would not wear the Legion's sacred emblem-but neither have you opposed him. I tell you this: you must do one or the other now. Tear off your surcoat and humbly supplicate Lord Urdhven to be one of his men, or do your damn job and protect the King of the Two Cities from a murdering usurper."

She reached into her mail shirt and drew forth a rumpled sheet of parchment with a red seal.

"This is my appointment, by the lawful King of the Two Cities and the lord of Ambrose, to act as his regent. Those who choose to stand with me and renew their oath to the King may take up in the new Royal Legion the same rank they held in the City Legion. Those who choose to do otherwise may crawl out of here, on their bellies or however seems suitable, but they must expect no mercy from me or any of the King's loyal ministers should we ever meet again."

She stood and, lifting her sword aloft, began to chant the words of the Legion's oath. As one, the assembled soldiers drew their swords and echoed her. The thunder of their voices reached down to the riverside dungeons, to the empty guardhouse at the City Gate, to a secret chamber high above the city where Morlock lay dreaming of being a dragon.

The King and Wyrth heard them as they sat beside Morlock in the hidden passages of Ambrose.

"What does it mean?" Lathmar asked breathlessly.

"They're either slaughtering the Lady Ambrosia or taking the oath with her," Wyrtheorn replied, shrugging. "Sounds too organized to be the murder of just one person, but they say the Legion is very well drilled. You know: `Company A: advance. Kill! Company B: advance. Kill! Company C-"'

"Oh, shut up."

"The King's wish is my command," said Wyrth, mock-obsequiously. Like Ambrosia, or for that matter Morlock, he was now a minister of the King with a seat on the Regency Council, if they only had a table to sit around.

"All right," said Lathmar, taking him at his word. "Then it's my wish that you attend Lady Ambrosia in the audience hall. Deliver her whatever assistance she seems to require. If she needs none, return to me here."

"Er." Wyrth pulled at his beard. "Are you sure you can wake him, if he needs waking? Morlock can be very single-minded, especially when he is pursuing a vision."

"I'm sure. Anyway, the sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back."

Wyrth shrugged again, grinning. He leaped to his feet, sketched a courtly bow toward his sovereign, and dashed off down the stone passage.

The King turned back to Morlock and considered the face of his dreaming minister. Then he folded his hands and put himself through the spiritual exercises Morlock had taught him to summon the rapture of vision.

Lathmar, in truth, had great promise as a seer, and the rapture came upon him swiftly. His spirit was drawn alongside Morlock's as he flew above the city on red silken wings filled with crows. Morlock acknowledged Lathmar's presence without even an unspoken word, and then returned to his rather complex task.

More than ever, Lathmar was awed by the power of Morlock's mind-the ability to direct the separate motions of hundreds of crows that filled the silken dragon puppet while maintaining the dragon illusion that sheathed it. But he was even more impressed when he perceived that Morlock's power over the crows was not power. They liked him-they respected him-they had had many a profitable deal with him. To them, he was the most crowlike of men, almost reasonable, and this latest prank (for so they thought of it) appealed tremendously to their small distorted senses of humor. They were willing partners in the gag; they took their cues from Morlock but were not mastered by him.

The city far below them was dim and shadowy in Lathmar's vision-far more visible were the myriads of human souls that burned brightly within it. Among them Lathmar was sure he could recognize one. He had seen him only once, rising from a hole in the floor of a ruined shop-

It was Genjandro, their agent in the city, awaiting as they had prearranged in one of his warehouses. It was extremely droll to see how like Genjandro's inside was to his outside-full of hate for the Protector, reverence for the King (at the moment Lathmar thought of the King as a being quite distinct from himself), and with a certain crowlike amusement for the task at hand. They left Genjandro setting fire to his rugs and leaped into the air again.

Presently they landed in the Great Market and confronted Urdhven. Lathmar was fascinated by the talic prospect of Urdhven. It was as if he were two men: one a hero figure of shining silver. But this was just a surface, tossed like tinsel over a heavier, blood-edged, somewhat indistinct figure-rather like the red lion that was his ensign. But it was the silver shape that all the soldiers in the market saw: there were tiny little silver Protectors inside their souls as they watched and worshipped Urdhven in his heroic moment. Lathmar would have laughed if he could have laughed.

Then Urdhven charged toward the dragon, and the silver within his spirit grew bright indeed, almost eclipsing the other, and his lance tore through the silken dragon that Lathmar's mind inhabited. The illusion spell on the dragon puppet was severed, and suddenly Lathmar's awareness was shattered into thousands of crow-shaped pieces of darkness and he knew nothing for a while.

The City Gate was standing wide open when Urdhven and his three cohorts of armed men reached it. To all appearances, there were no soldiers on duty.

"May the Strange Gods damn them all to all eternity!" Urdhven muttered with complete sincerity.

He could take comfort, he supposed, in the fact that the Ambrosii had not secured the gate against him. Then again, it was possible that they held the gate on the far side of the bridge and were waiting in ambush.

"Vost," he said, after a moment's thought, "stay here with Vendhrik's and Stalost's cohorts. Arnring's cohort, dismount and follow me." And he rode into the dark gate, past the dark gatehouse onto the bridge over the river Tilion. When he was halfway across he paused, raising his hand. The cohort halted on the bridge behind him.

"Arnring," he said to the cohort's commander, "I have a dangerous mission which I can entrust only to you."

"Yes, sir!" Arnring replied eagerly.

"I want you to enter the castle Ambrose and engage in reconnaissance. I believe the Ambrosii may be somewhere within. Enter the castle, take possession of the key points, and return to me a message when your men are in place."

"Yes, sir." Arnring was less eager now. But he still seemed conscious of the honor Urdhven was doing him in selecting him for the task. (It was just as well, then, that he didn't know Urdhven had in fact selected him and his cohort because they were the most expendable of the three.)

"If you meet armed resistance," Urdhven continued, "send me word of that, too, and I will bring reinforcements. Any message you send must have a code phrase, do you understand? So that I can be sure it is from you and not our enemies."

"Yes, sir. What is the phrase?"

"Oh-`Steng is a useless weasel."'

Arnring grinned. "Yes, sir. `Steng is a useless weasel."'

"Good hunting to you, then, Commander Arnring."

Arnring lifted his arm in salute and then, barking commands, marched his cohort on past the Lord Protector.

Urdhven waited until they were out of sight on the far gate and then dismounted. His right side was bruised where he had fallen in fighting the "dragon"-he longed to disarm and scratch his body head to toe. But he knew he couldn't until he was sure Ambrose was secure.

He waited, staring out over the dark waters of the Tilion. The overcast sky was rumbling periodically, and the sun had long set-it would be a dark night, a night full of rain. He wondered if he should spend it at Markethall Barracks-the truth is, though, he could not bear to be near the site of that embarrassing encounter with the false dragon. He wondered what the men were saying about it. He wished he could hear them. He thought he did hear them, outside the gate, on the city street. He was sure he heard Vost's voice. Then he definitely heard the portcullis of the gate slam shut.

He ran back down the bridge to the gate opening onto the street. His two cohorts were gone. The echoes of the horses' hoofbeats were fading away as he stood there, forlorn, inside the gate. Vost, the ever-faithful, was gone. Had Vost betrayed him? Had he been overpowered by the others? They had even taken the horses of Arnring's cohort. Why had they done that?

Urdhven decided he needed to catch up with Arnring's men. He went up the bridge to his horse, thinking vaguely of where he should tether it …and then something occurred to him.

The lever to control the portcullis was inside the gatehouse. It could not be shut from the street.

Someone was behind him …in the dark gatehouse he had passed. Someone who had locked him into the castle. Someone who had not spoken to him, but had watched and waited with the cunning of a cat playing with a mouse.

The hairs on the back of his neck were already rising when he heard booted feet on the stones of the bridge behind him.

He turned and saw a man step out of the shadows near the gatehouse. The man wore a black surcoat with a red lion rampant across it. He wore a helmet and full armor as well, but he doffed the helmet as he approached.

Urdhven knew the man's features reasonably well. They were his own.

"Appearance is nothing," the other said-as if Urdhven's thoughts, too, were his. "Voice is another matter. Even if every tone is in place, one must say the things one's audience expects, or the illusion will be shattered."

"Which one are you?" Urdhven said. He did not quite keep the fear out of his voice.

"Does it matter?"

"Which one are you?"

"I sent your men around to the Lonegate. The King's new Legion should have disposed of Arnring's men and secured all entrance points by the time they reach there. If not, I suppose they may meet you there-and you (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) will tell them to ride back here, or to Markethall, or-"

"Who are you?" Urdhven screamed.

His simulacrum grunted. "I am-for all practical purposes-anyone you have ever murdered. I am anyone you have ever had tortured to death. I am anyone you have ever robbed or terrorized. I am anyone who has cause to hate you. Does that narrow it down for you, Lord Protector?"

Urdhven drew his sword. "You won't take me without a fight."

"I destroyed Hlosian Bekh. I can kill you."

Urdhven had thought that his fear would grow less when he knew which of the Ambrosii he was facing. Instead he found the whole night was alive with terror-the rumbling of the thunder in the distance seemed to be the approach of something horrible; every shadow seemed a grinning mask of death. He remembered the day of Ambrosia's trial by combat, that nightmare of a day when everything had begun to go wrong.

Nevertheless he replied firmly, with a confidence he truly felt, "No, you can't."

By way of answer, the man who wore his face drew his sword and attacked.

The fight that followed was not as long as it might have been. Urdhven's opponent was a more skilled fencer, but Urdhven was not incompetent. Still, he could not bring himself to strike with deadly force at his own image. His enemy gave him opening after opening, smiling with an unpleasant crooked smile, daring Urdhven to strike. But he couldn't.

Finally, his enemy grew tired of toying with him and set about the business of dispatching him in the most businesslike way. In a few moments, all Urdhven's limbs were bleeding, and as he strove to parry a stroke he was stunned by a blow to his chest. His enemy's riposte, sure and terribly strong, had slipped past his defense and struck through his armor.

The Lord Protector looked down to see the hilt of his enemy's sword protruding from his rib cage. In a moment it was withdrawn, and as he staggered he saw the bright edge of the sword whistling through the air at him again.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN MERCY AT THE GATE

Lathmar VII, King of the Two Cities and Lord of Ambrose, rightful heir to the imperial throne (if he could only get it), awoke with a squawk.

He sat up and stared blearily around at the empty stone chamber where he found himself. Apparently he was not, after all, a crow raiding a cornfield north of the city. Why in the world would he ever have supposed that?

Then he remembered: he had joined into Morlock's vision as Morlock's mind conducted the hundreds of crows who had carried their dragon puppet into the city to face the Lord Protector. Lacking Morlock's skill, he had been carried away by his rapport with the crows after the illusion was shattered and the troop dispersed.

Morlock was gone. Where he had been was a message written in the stark pointed characters of Morlock's hand:

I go to secure the City Gate, as we planned. Ambrosia and your soldiers will soon engage in battle with the Protector's Men. You were unwise to send Wyrth away. Stay here until we send for you.

Morlock Ambrosius

The King dropped the message on the ground, and it began to burn. Before it had blackened to ash he had decided to disobey it. This was the crucial moment in their battle with the Protector; he wasn't going to spend it hiding in a secret passage.

Lathmar took the secret ways through the walls of Ambrose down to a hallway near the great audience hall. Even before he left the secret passage he could hear men in armed conflict, so he proceeded carefully. He crept into the open hallway and over to a balustrade that overlooked the entryway to the audience hall.

Men were fighting there. Men had died there: the bodies were scattered underfoot in the corridor. Men wearing the Protector's red lion were facing City Legionaries in blue and gray.

The Legionaries were outnumbered, and as Lathmar watched breathlessly, they began to fall back toward the entrance of the audience hall. The Protector's Men followed eagerly, shouting Urdhven's name as their battle cry. The Legionaries said nothing, but grimly and slowly retreated in order.

Finally the Protector's Men were facing the Legionaries at the entrance of the Hall itself, and the Legionaries ceased retreating. Ambrosia and Wyrth were not among them; Lathmar could not tell if they were among the dead. One of the soldiers sounded a horn, which echoed strangely in the stone corridors.

In pinning the Legionaries against the entrance to the Hall, the Protector's Men had incautiously turned their backs toward the corridors emptying into the atrium. After the Legionary's call, the shadows in those empty corridors suddenly bristled with bright blades: Legionaries filled each hallway, leaping into the atrium to attack the Protector's Men from behind. Among these Lathmar thought he recognized Ambrosia (in the armor of a Protector's Man, but without the surcoat), and he was sure he recognized Wyrth (who was distinguished in that group both by the smallness of his size and the ferocity of his fighting).

Lathmar guessed that the battle would go in the Legion's favor now, and truly there was nothing he could do about it. He backed away from the balustrade and stumbled against an armed man standing beside him.

He thought all was lost for a second, until he realized that this man wore the surcoat of a City Legionary. Then the man pushed back his visor and the King got another surprise.

"Lorn!" he gasped. "How …?"

"No, Your Majesty," the Legionary said. "I had a cousin Lorn, who they say died in your service. My name is Karn."

"Karp," said the King recovering. "I see."

"I took the oath with the others in the audience hall-Your Majesty may trust me."

"I will," said Lathmar. "What brings you here, Karn?"

"I was sent on reconnaissance of these corridors, Your Majesty-to see if there were any more Protector's Men in arms hereabouts."

"And?"

"Negative, Your Majesty. The Protector's Men seem to have stayed in a single body."

"Unwise, perhaps, under the circumstances."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Who has been sent to secure the City Gate?"

"I don't know that anyone has, Your Majesty. The Regent Ambrosia said that was …her brother's lookout, I think she said."

"Well, let's go see how Morlock is faring then," the King said, noting with interest how the Legionary flinched when he spoke Morlock's name. "You'd better accompany me, in case we run into any stragglers."

It occurred to the King, then, that Karn himself might be a straggler. If he had really been sent on reconnaissance, he should have reported back to the officer who sent him. Instead, he seemed perfectly willing to accompany the King away from the fighting. Oh, well-Lathmar supposed he outranked anyone who could have given Karn his orders. The man looked exactly like Lorn-slightly younger, perhaps. He must have inherited something of Lorn's iron loyalty from the same place he had gotten Lorn's appearance.

"Let's go, then," he said to his new soldier, and they crept away from the fighting.

Lathmar was tempted to reenter the secret ways. It would be a safer, if slower, method of traveling through the castle. But he felt he could not do so in Karn's company: a passage isn't secret if every private soldier knows about it …and the truth was that he still had his doubts about Karn.

So they traveled the open corridors, and they met no Protector's Men. But they did encounter Kedlidor, the Rite-Master of Ambrose, along with a motley swarm of castle servants who appeared mostly to be kitchen staff. They were armed, anyway, with cleavers, knives, tongs, and similar implements; some wore pots as makeshift helmets.

"Your Majesty," said Kedlidor, bowing his head in greeting.

"Kedlidor," said the King. Kedlidor's followers seemed rather daunted by his armed Legionary, but Lathmar had the oddest feeling that Karn was edging over behind him-to use him as a shield? "I remind you, RiteMaster," the King said quickly, "that you and your people here are personal servants of myself, as Lord of Ambrose. You are not under the Protector's orders, whatever he may have told you."

"You have learned that lesson excellently well, Your Majesty, but I remind you it was I who taught it to you. I was just saying the same to these persons here, who heard the armed conflict and were worried there was another purge in progress."

"In a way there is," the King replied. "My regent, the Lady Ambrosia, is taking direct rule of Ambrose back from the usurper Urdhven. My Legion is fighting with Urdhven's men in the area of the audience hall. Those disloyal to me will, of course, be executed by the Lady Ambrosia."

The kitchen staff poured out its professions of loyalty in an incoherent but urgently expressed chorus. Lathmar was skeptical-if they had been genuinely loyal to him, no doubt Urdhven would have killed them in the earlier purge of castle servants. But if they were willing to behave as if they were loyal, that was all that Lathmar could reasonably require.

"You can offer no real help to Ambrosia at the hall-and the truth is that she needs none. But the Lonegate, on the far side of the castle, is unguarded, as far as I know. Kedlidor, I appoint you the commander of this group of …of militia."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Kedlidor said with real gratitude. "I was quite concerned about the ad hoc and unofficial nature of my leadership."

"Take them to the Lonegate. If you find it empty, secure it against all intruders, until you have word from me or another of my ministers. If it is occupied by my soldiers, put yourself at the disposal of their captain. If it is occupied by Urdhven's thugs, wait until my Legionaries approach and put yourself at the disposal of their commander."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Go then. Good luck."

The Royal Irregulars, First Cohort, trooped off down the hallway, wafting a distinct odor of onions and pork behind them. Lathmar shook his head and continued toward the City Gate, Guardsman Karn now firmly at his side.

There were only three possibilities, the King told himself as he chose his approach through the empty corridors. Either Morlock had secured the gate and needed no assistance; Morlock had not secured the gate, and it was held by Protector's Men; or the gate was held by no one. In the latter case it might be empty, or its possession might be in dispute. In any case, the King thought it would be best to approach the gate indirectly.

There was a second guardhouse on the inner side of the bridge over the river Tilton. From its upper floor, one could watch the uncovered bridge from bowslits. It was here that the King came, accompanied by Karn, so that he could have a long look at the bridge and the guardhouse at the far end before he entrusted himself to their dangers.

From here he watched as the Protector and his mirror image (but which was which?) fought on the uncovered bridge beneath a dark sky crossed with silver lightning. One Protector took the other's sword in his chest up to its hilt. Then the unwounded Protector leaped back, recovered, and deftly cut off his staggering opponent's head.

"Bravo, Morlock!" the King muttered. No illusion spell could disguise his fencing master's style of swordplay.

This guess was confirmed when the victorious "Protector" tugged with his left hand at his nose, as if bemused, and the likeness of Urdhven fell away from him in a heap of shining cord around his feet. It was Morlock, of course, who stood there, gazing with genuine bemusement at the headless form of the Protector, still standing in the middle of the bridge.

Morlock, holding his sword at full extension, stepped away from the discarded simulacrum and cautiously approached the standing body. Before the tip of the sword reached the Protector's chest the headless body brought its own sword up to guard, dashed Morlock's blade aside, and lunged for his chest. Morlock brought his sword back to parry and caught the other's sword in a bind.

"I told you," the Protector's voice sounded on the uncovered bridge. "I told you that you could not kill me."

The King gasped and saw that the Protector's severed head was resting against one wall of the bridge, watching his body's attack on Morlock with every appearance of detached amusement.

"I didn't know that I'd be facing you," the Protector's head said calmly. "But I knew my quest for the throne would lead me to face Ambrosia. I knew I would need help, so I sought out a magical patron among the adeptsamong `those-who-know,' as I believe you refer to each other."

The Protector's body kicked at Morlock's feet and broke the bind. Morlock leaped back and coolly parried a flurry of attacks from the headless corpse.

"So, you see," the Protector's head continued, "you cannot kill my body. And it is only a matter of time until my body kills you. It is like Hlosian again, but there is no scroll for you to sever, no weak point for you to attack."

Morlock wordlessly retreated a step or two, and then again. The smile on the Protector's head became broad indeed. The smile faded a bit when Urdhven seemed to realize what the King already had: Morlock's retreat was bringing him nearer and nearer to the Protector's severed head.

The headless body leaped forward in a desperate assault. Morlock danced back and kicked the severed head like a football. It spun, lopsided, across the curving surface of the stone bridge and fetched up facefirst against the wall on the other side. The Protector gave a muffled groan of pain, and the headless body seemed to become disoriented. Morlock stepped forward and slashed off its sword-bearing hand.

"I've fought the living dead before," Morlock said finally. "Your patron has misled you-perhaps deliberately."

"I'm not dead!" the Protector's head screamed desperately. "I'll never die!"

"But you'll never truly live," Morlock said. "You will never know peace, unless I or one of those-who-know give it to you."

The headless body broke into a staggering run. It took a zigzag course toward the severed head, gaining confidence as it moved. The King realized that the head must be directing it by the sound of its own footfalls. Morlock let it go. It reached the severed head and picked it up, cradling it in its arms.

It turned to face Morlock. "You'll never defeat us," the head hissed.

"You are nothing," Morlock said. "No one can defeat you and nothing can help you. You destroyed yourself when you allowed the adept to take your heart and lungs and brain. All that is left of what once was Urdhven is a slender thread of ego trapped inside that shell of meat."

The severed head screamed in the arms of its body.

Morlock spoke through the scream. "I can give you rest. Give me the name and dwelling place of the adept, your patron. Tell me this, and I will tell you how to die."

"They're coming for you!" the severed head hissed. "They're coming for you! They're almost here. Ask them what my patron's name is!" The remaining hand of the body took up the head gently, and then tossed it into the dark waters of the Tilion. Sluggishly, the body tipped over the rail and was lost in the river also.

Morlock spoke a crackling syllable of Dwarvish. He threw down the sword, turned, and ran down the bridge to the gate on the far side.

"We must help him!" the King said to Karn. Turning around, he saw that he was alone. He was briefly surprised. (He had seen a great many horrible things in the past few years, but simple cowardice had not often been one of them.) Then he picked himself up and ran down the steps. He passed over the bloody bridge stones where Morlock and the Protector had had their strange duel. Pausing for a moment, he watched with alarm as a severed hand, moving like a crippled spider, crept through the rail of the bridge and leapt into the water below. Shuddering, he ran on. He found Morlock standing still, gazing as if mesmerized at the portcullis of the street gate.

"Lathmar," said Morlock without looking at him. "You should not be here."

"You need help and there's no one else," Lathmar said. "The others are busy. You'll have to make do with me."

Morlock shook his head. "I will shortly do battle, and I will be unable to take care of you. You should go back now to the secret passages."

"I won't," said the King stubbornly. "So what can I do to help?"

"Keep them off me," Morlock said.

"I-what?"

"It may happen that I will be in rapture as our enemies approach. In that case, keep them off my body, so that I can complete my task in the tal-realm."

"All right," said the King faintly.

"And stay clear from my vision. You learned how it could entrap you when the dragon illusion broke."

"Yes," the King admitted.

"This will be far more dangerous. See, they are here." He raised his hand and called out in a clear voice, "Tyrfing!"

The dark window of the guardhouse burst outward, and among the crystalline shards was one-long, swordlike, and dark-which fell into Morlock's outstretched hand. It was Tyrfing, the accursed sword, its blade like dark basaltic glass glimmering in the fitful light of the stormy evening.

The King turned from gaping at the sword to the street outside the portcullis. It was lampless and dark. But in the shadows the King could see a death cart, and in it two of the red-cloaked, red-masked Companions of Mercy.

"What are they?" the King asked.

"I don't know," Morlock said calmly. "They are impenetrable to my vision."

"Then how will you defeat them?"

"I don't know that I will." Morlock's cold gray eyes met his. "There is still time to return to the passages."

"Stop saying that!" shouted the King, who had been thinking the same thing.

Morlock shrugged and turned his eyes back to the street. There was another death cart there, moving almost silently alongside the other, with muffled hoofbeats and muffled wheels. Soon there was a third and a fourth.

"What are you waiting for?" the King demanded. "Soon there will be too many for you! Do what you're going to do!"

"I have my reasons for waiting," Morlock said, clearly somewhat nettled.

"Tell me one."

"To see how many they think will be too many," said Morlock, gesturing with the accursed sword. "If you want something to do, you could fetch me a lit torch."

"What?" The King had been watching the arrival of another death cart when he noticed something. All the red masks of the Companions of Mercy were facing them-even those of the ones holding the reins of the horses. He had the oddest feeling that they were all looking at him, not at Morlock at all.

"Get. A. Lit. Torch." Morlock spoke firmly and calmly. "Do it now. Go."

"All right!" the King shouted. He ran back across the bridge over the Tilion. He found a lamp full of oil in the guardhouse on the far side, but no torches. He was tempted to go further into Ambrose to find a torch …but then, he thought, he might not return to Morlock in time. He lit the lamp with a coal from the guardhouse fire; it would do as well as a torch, he hoped.

Then he thought: Why return at all? He doesn't really need me-he said so.

Still, he mused, suppose Morlock does need the torch, and I don't bring it?

It occurred to him that Morlock did not expect him to return-that this was just a pretext to get him away from the fight. The more Lathmar thought about this, the more likely it seemed.

That was what decided him. He took a deep breath, picked up the lamp, and marched out of the guardhouse. It had begun to rain outside; he trotted across the dark wet bridge as fast as he dared (sheltering the lamp flame with his free hand).

"Here!" he shouted at Morlock, over the roar of the rain, and shoved the lamp at him. "I couldn't find a torch!"

"This will do," Morlock said coolly. "Thank you. Hold the lamp, please-I will have to act soon."

Lathmar looked instinctively at the gate. There were hundreds of redcloaked Companions in the street outside. They were beginning to move toward the gate.

Morlock extended Tyrfing, and Lathmar saw there were veins of glowing white crystal within the dark blade. It reminded him of how Morlock appeared in the tal-world-a black-and-white living flame. He turned to look at Morlock and saw that his eyes were glowing faintly.

"Are-are you in rapture?" the King spluttered. "Is this the time-?"

"Yes and no," Morlock replied, his voice a crowlike rasp. "With Tyrfing I can exert my will simultaneously in the tal-realm and the world of matterat least for simple things. Say no more now."

Morlock closed his glowing eyes. The red-cloaked Companions began to climb the portcullis. There were dozens of them on it, more awaiting a chance to climb, others descending to the far side and apparently waiting for the rest.

Morlock's free hand gestured or convulsed. The portcullis, the stones of the wall, and the street near it all began to emit a thin, faintly luminous mist. It became thicker, almost a fog. It didn't seem to bother the Companions in the least.

Morlock opened his eyes.

"What did you do?" the King demanded. "What is that stuff?"

"I released the phlogiston trapped in the portcullis and its environs. Give me the lamp."

"What's phlogiston?" the King demanded, handing him the lamp.

"The element in matter which burns."

"Do metal and stone burn?" the King asked.

"Everything burns," Morlock said, and threw the lamp. It landed on the cobblestones before the portcullis and smashed. Instantly, the luminous mist and everything in it was a cloud of red flame. Dozens of Companions fell in burning heaps to the ground, smoking in the rain.

"Come," Morlock said, and they ran together back along the wet dark bridge toward Ambrose. Morlock stopped just short of the inner guardhouse gate.

"You killed a lot of them," the King said.

"I don't think so."

"What do you mean?"

"In any case, there are very many of them."

"Then they'll come after us."

"Yes. Not soon, perhaps. They will fear a repetition of the phlogiston tactic."

"And will you …?"

"No. We have a better chance. Listen, Lathmar."

"Yes?"

"Whatever these Companions are, they use some sort of binding magic to sustain their forms. Running water is hostile to such magic. The river can protect us from them."

Relief washed over the King. "They can't cross the bridge?"

"That is precisely it. They can cross the bridge; if it were not here, the river would prevent them from crossing. So, at least, I guess."

"Then-but-we can't dismantle the bridge!"

"I can destroy it," Morlock said, "but I will have to go deeper into rapture to do it. I will have to surrender volitional action in the world of the senses. Do you understand, Lathmar? That is when you will need to stand guard over me."

"What if I can't?" the King muttered.

Morlock shrugged.

"Did you need the lamp?" the King asked impulsively.

"You saw that I did."

"What would you have done if I hadn't been there?"

"Fetched it myself."

"How did you know I would bring it?"

Morlock's expressions were hard to read at the best of times, but Lathmar thought he looked surprised. "You said you would," he replied.

The King groaned. "I'll do what I can," he muttered at last. "I can't promise much against …" He waved his hand vaguely toward the bridge. When his eyes followed his own gesture, he saw red-cloaked, red-masked forms on the far side of the bridge.

Morlock collapsed on the stones at the foot of the bridge. It was as if he had fainted. But his gray irises were brightly luminous through the thin layer of their eyelids, and Tyrfing, which had fallen clattering at his side, loosely clasped in his nerveless fingers, was a strip of black-and-white flame.

Trembling, the King stood between the fallen Morlock and the Companions of Mercy. Suddenly the thought occurred to him: Defend him with what? He had no weapon. He glanced toward the bridge and saw the glitter of the sword Morlock had dropped there-the one he had fought the Protector with. But Lathmar couldn't bring himself to run toward those slowly advancing red shadows.

There was the guardhouse-he would almost certainly find something in there. But he was afraid that if he went into the guardhouse, even for a moment, he wouldn't have the courage to come out again.

He glanced down at Tyrfing. It shone, black and white, in the raindrenched, lightning-crossed shadows of the stormy night. It was still in rapport with Morlock, acting as a focus for his power. But it was also a sword, and Lathmar needed a sword or some weapon badly. Perhaps it would make little difference in the event of a real fight (there were so many Companions!), but holding one would give him the courage to stand and face them, the courage to not leave Morlock helpless and alone. He didn't think that picking Tyrfing up and wielding it would disrupt Morlock's rapport with his focusonly Morlock could do that, once the rapport was established.

No, what the King was afraid of was this: Tyrfing was believed to be cursed, and anyone who wielded the sword, even for a moment, was held to fall under that curse. The King didn't believe in the curse necessarily-but he didn't disbelieve, either: it would explain a lot about Morlock.

But he had promised. And Morlock was counting on that promise. Gritting his teeth, the King stooped down to pick up the accursed sword.

As soon as his fingers touched the hilt he knew he had made a mistake. Vaguely he felt his body fall to the stones at the foot of the bridge, but he sensed no pain.

He was standing over the fallen bodies of Morlock and himself. Morlock was some distance away, a black-and-white column of flames from which extended two flamelike arms: one black and one white. The black one was extended toward the red Companions of Mercy (who appeared, in Lathmar's inner vision, exactly as they had done to his eyes). It was as if Morlock was casting a thin net of finely woven dark mesh over the Companions and the bridge. But from his white hand came a corresponding shower of bright particles.

White and black, white and black. The near side of the bridge grew brighter and brighter; the bridge itself grew darker and darker. What was Morlock doing? Was he sorting the particles-dark ones to the bridge, bright ones to the bridge's foot? Why?

On an impulse, Lathmar looked up at the sky. It wasn't dark, as it had been to the eyes. It was filled with a crooked web of light. And more than that. The sky was alive: there was a mind up there. It was a mind about to think quick, bright, deadly thoughts: the mind of the storm.

Lathmar cried out in fear. That was when Morlock became aware of him. He extended one bright flamelike finger and thrust Lathmar out of the vision.

The King came to himself lying on the stones next to Morlock. He leapt to his feet. The Companions were even nearer now, approaching cautiously, but the first ones had already passed over the arc of the bridge and were heading down toward Lathmar.

He clenched his fists and prepared to meet them. The hairs on the back of his neck were rising.

Then the dark sky opened up and the lightning bolts fell. Like an avalanche of bright burning stones they struck the bridge, not one stroke but over and over, blinding bitter hammer-blows until the bridge shattered and the dark stones fell into the river and the red Companions with them, wailing at last in despair as the dark water received them.

Lathmar lost consciousness again, in the more ordinary way, and when he became aware of the world again, the thing was over. The bridge was gone; clouds of dust and smoke were settling around him, washed from the air by the rain; the Companions, if any survived, had gone from the far side of the ruined bridge.

Lathmar rolled to his feet and glanced about for Morlock. He was lying, still in rapture, next to Tyrfing at the foot of the bridge. But the bridge was gone and the rough margin of stone and earth was crumbling into the dark water below. Morlock and his focus were right on the edge. Lathmar reached toward them impulsively, but then drew back.

What if he was drawn into Morlock's vision again? They would fall together into the river and be killed. But perhaps if he didn't touch the sword directly …

He reached out with one foot and tentatively hooked it under the hilt of Tyrfing. The dark rainy night stayed before his waking eyes. The leather of his shoe apparently insulated him from being drawn into the vision-or perhaps it was the fixed decision not to be drawn in that kept him clear. In any case, Lathmar shuffled backward, drawing with him the glowing sword hooked over his foot, and then kicked it back into the guardhouse behind him.

When he turned back to Morlock, he found he was alone. The edge had crumbled further while his back was turned, throwing Morlock's unconscious body into the river.

Lathmar squawked and dove without thinking into the dark rain-torn water of the Tilion.

Rocks and earth fell behind him into the water; he struck out as hard as he could with the current: both to catch up with Morlock's drifting body and to get away from the collapsing bridge foundation behind him.

He wondered at first if he should dive-surely Morlock had sunk below the surface? Then, between bouts of inhaling dirty river water, he wondered what he was doing at all. He was no great swimmer, even when he had only his own body to keep afloat. It was unlikely that he would be able to help Morlock, even if he could find him. But it was even more unlikely that anyone else would be able to help him at all. Grimly he dog-paddled on.

Soon he caught sight of a tangle of limbs floating on the surface of the river. It was hard to tell what he was seeing, in the intermittent flashes of lightning-there seemed to be too many limbs. But he directed his strokes toward it, hoping desperately he was not rushing toward a jumble of Companions of Mercy. Alive, dead, or undead, he had to think they would be unpleasant companions for a nighttime swim …

What he saw, when it got closer, was almost worse. It was indeed Morlock floating on the surface of the river; his eyes still glowed faintly, indicating he was still in the withdrawal of rapture.

But atop him was the headless body of the Protector, one undead hand clutching Morlock's mortal throat.

Lathmar shouted-whether in fear or anger he never knew-and flailed into them. It was a preposterous nightmare, unlike the unlikeliest scenarios that Morlock and Wyrth had put him through. He had no weapon; he had no way to hurt his enemy; yet it was desperately important that he defeat him. He hung on to one of the Protector's arms and hit the chest as hard as he could with one fist. It gave a hollow meaty sound from the severed throat, but otherwise seemed to have little effect. The headless body maintained its one-handed grip on Morlock's throat.

One-handed: Lathmar remembered that Morlock had cut off its right hand on the bridge. He seized the left arm and tried to pull it loose from Morlock's throat. He assumed he was safe from the other arm-wrongly, as it proved. The headless body struck him with its handless right arm as with a club, and he fell away into the water.

In a moment he was back on the surface, spouting water, struggling toward the other two bodies. Over the roar of the river and the rumble of thunder and the hiss of the rain, he had the strangest impression the body was chuckling or snarling as he approached. But that couldn't be, unless …

He looked down to see the Protector's head gnawing on one of Morlock's hands floating nerveless in the water. The head's eyes were on him as he approached, and the handless right arm prepared to club him off again.

But Lathmar ducked under the swing of the arm and snatched at the head. He pulled it away from Morlock's hand, the teeth carrying raw flesh away as they clenched in a desperate attempt to stay in place.

When Lathmar had the head in his hands it screamed, then choked on the bit of Morlock's flesh it had in its mouth. Treading water, Lathmar held the head in one hand and punched it as hard as he could with the other. It flew away, lopsided, end over end, into the night toward the city side of the river.

The headless body abandoned its attempt to throttle Morlock and floundered away in the water toward the direction where the head had disappeared. Lathmar grabbed Morlock's body and held on to it like a float for a few moments, regaining his strength. Then he began the long, laborious task of shepherding the unconscious body through the rough water to the side of the river where Ambrose stood.

There was, in fact, no shore there. But Lathmar managed to find some irregularities in the stone wall where he could place his feet and lean back and rest.

His limbs were trembling like leaves, from terror and from the cold water. He had never been so exhausted, not even on that terrible night when he had hauled Lorn's dead body halfway around Ambrose. For a long time he had hated to think about that night, and it still wasn't pleasant, but the pain was no longer so sharp.

"This time I got there in time," he told Morlock's unconscious form, with fierce satisfaction, if somewhat incoherently.

The terror and the satisfaction both faded presently, but the cold remained, grew worse. Lathmar began to realize that they would have to get out of the water somehow, or they would die anyway and it would all be for nothing.

He was just about to begin to feel his way upstream along the wall when the light behind Morlock's eyelids faded and his eyes opened.

Morlock spat out some water, coughed once or twice, and said matter-of- factly, "So the bank gave way after the bridge collapsed? I thought it might."

"You might have mentioned it to me," the King remarked, coolly if not dryly.

"Sorry," Morlock replied. "Thanks for keeping me from floating downstream. I took a deep breath before I withdrew into rapture, hoping it would keep me buoyant. Did it?"

"Yes."

There was a pause as Morlock righted himself, found a foothold on the wall, and generally took stock of the situation.

"There is a bite wound on my hand," he observed after a few moments.

Haltingly, Lathmar told him what had happened after Morlock had fallen into the river.

"I'm glad you were there to save me from your Protector," Morlock said when he was done.

Lathmar was somehow both pleased and enraged by these quiet words.

"He's not my Protector!" he shouted in Morlock's dark, impassive face. Tears as cold as river water ran down his face. "He was never my Protector! You're my Protector!"

Lathmar was horrified at what he had said, as if it were some dreadful confession, but Morlock wasn't. He put one arm around the boy and held him as he wept. "Well, tonight you were mine," he remarked finally.

Thunderstruck, the King stopped weeping.

They worked their way upstream toward the site where the bank had collapsed. They weren't sure they could ascend there, and they were sure it would be impossible anywhere else.

When they got there they saw two figures standing near the ruined bridge foundation.

"I hope you've had a pleasant swim, Your Majesty," the shorter one called down. "But if it's not too much trouble perhaps you should come inside now. We've been at some pains to set you on your throne, and there is some work to be done, at Your Majesty's earliest convenience."

Lathmar's response is recorded in no history.

"Such language from a well-brought-up lad of royal blood," Wyrth replied, but he tossed down a rope without any further exercise of his wit. Together, he and Ambrosia drew the waterlogged King and Morlock from the river.

"Well, Lathmar," Ambrosia said, "you may be King only in name, and you may never be Emperor. But tonight you are Lord of Ambrose in fact as well as in law. You had better receive our homage before we go back in."

So the three adults kneeled, and one by one, Lathmar took their outstretched hands and placed them between his hand and fist as each one swore to him allegiance.

In a room within the living city, shut away from the storm-torn night, Steng lay dreaming of his true master. Elsewhere, in the dead city, Steng's true master sat on a dark throne, dreaming of himself. Along the bank of the Tilion a headless body wandered, feeling its way with one hand.

And Lathmar VII, Lord of Ambrose and King of the Two Cities, followed his ministers into the castle he would rule for the rest of his life-however long that would be.