Blood of Ambrose Read online

  “If—”

  “That was a rhetorical question, Lathmar, because the answer is, ‘No.' Steng would be a street-corner hawker of drugs; Urdhven would be knocking up ex-maidens in his little barony; and Lorn would be a living, itching, complaining foot soldier instead of a dead hero if this were my empire. The trouble with it is that it's not mine. It's yours or no one's. That is why men are killing each other in these evil days, Lathmar. Because what is no one's might be anyone's, if only he can get it.”

  “Enough,” Morlock said. “Ambrosia, he is grieving for his friend.”

  Ambrosia spat out a clot of dark phlegm before replying. “Don't coddle him, Morlock. He's seen one soldier die in this civil war. Lorn wasn't the first and won't be the last.”

  “You sound like Merlin,” Morlock remarked.

  Ambrosia became very still. Then she said quietly, “That's a woman's argument.”

  Morlock grunted. “Then it ought to be effective. Wyrth, tend to the King.”

  Lathmar struck out desperately at the hard blunt hands that offered to take his arm. But his strength, such as it was, had gone. The last thing he remembered was sitting with his head on his knees weeping uncontrollably. He had begun to cry when Morlock called Lorn his friend, and now he could not stop. In all his life he had had one friend, and now that friend was dead. What was an empire compared to that?

  hrough 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 Lathmar VII. And from the first day he took charge of the King's education—he 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 Morlock 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 father—if 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.