Blood of Ambrose Page 32

  “Steng, I believe?” the King said to the shadowy form. He tried to keep his voice cool, but the tone wavered; he was tired and he was frightened. But he didn't let that stop him. As a king, as a ruler in the proud tradition of Vraidish conquerors, he might be a complete failure. But he'd die like a king, at least, never giving in. “I believe I had the pleasure of your company once or twice at Ambrose, though of course we were never formally introduced.”

  The form laughed, in a voice that was very much like Steng's…or was it? It was phlegmier, somehow—creakier.

  “So you have, Lathmar,” the other replied, “in a way, although I'm not Steng. I'm the original on which Steng was modeled. He was made in my own image. Don't you find that amusing? But perhaps you haven't heard that one. I forget which religions are current in these parts.”

  There was a crash as the stone slab was set back into place, sealing the room.

  It was a broad open chamber, with a work desk and chair, and other furniture harder to name scattered about. There was a hole in the middle of the floor with spiral stairs leading down to a lower level. The room was well lit by a line of floor-length windows opening onto a balcony. But the other was standing with his back to these. The King stepped around him to inspect him more closely.

  This certainly was not Steng. His right shoulder was hiked even higher than Morlock's; his hair was stringy and gray; the tip of his nose and the ends of his fingers seemed to have rotted away. But, in spite of that, the resemblance was striking.

  The other, meanwhile, was inspecting the King equally closely, wagging his head as in disbelief.

  “No, no,” he said. “Incredible. Anyway, I can hardly believe it.”

  After several minutes of this, the King said, as sharply as his shaky voice allowed, “Well?”

  “Well?” the other echoed.

  “Aren't you going to tell me why you brought me here?” the King demanded, striving (and failing) to get something like the authentic Ambrosian rasp.

  The other seemed surprised. “Tell you…? Oh, no. I don't think so. I mean, what's in it for me? And what good would it do you, really?”

  “I'd like to know.”

  “People make that mistake all the time. ‘Better to know the worst!’ they say, and then, you know, they blame you simply because they get what they think they wanted. No, I've done with that. I don't give people what they think they want, and I don't give them what they want. I give them what I want. It's easier and there's less fuss and screaming and things.”

  “What would you do if I started screaming?” asked the King, wondering if he could reach this oddly sensitive semicorpse through his finer feelings.

  “Kill you,” the other said briefly. “I'll tell you why I didn't bring you here. Some of me said, ‘Oh, transfer into a young body this time—the little King, wouldn't that be amusing? Why, we could be Emperor after all, after everything.’ But others of me, and I'm with them, they said, ‘No, take someone like Morlock, or the dwarf or Ambrosia. Even if they're slightly killed they'll last better than the little King.’ And these of me are clearly right. You're practically ordinary: an Ontilian man in the street, junior size.”

  Somewhat confused by this, the King said, “Transfer to Gr—I mean, to Ambrosia's body—”

  “Don't call her Grandmother,” the other said, with every appearance of jealousy. “I hate it when you do that. You've no right, you know. She's not your grandmother; she's my grandmother. Anyway,” he said, cooling off slightly, “she was the grandmother of my first body. I suppose the matter is somewhat more complicated now.”

  “You're not…not in your original body, then?”

  “Well, I am and I'm not. That's the interesting thing. Even if I transferred into your body, I'd soon look like this again. The mind is subject to the body in many mundane ways, but the body yields to the mind, too. My talic imprint compels any body I wear to assume this form. Why, take this very body—it was female when I took it up, very recently dead, quite fresh and comfortable. Now it's quite male. It even has a penis. Would you like to see it?”

  “No.”

  “Hm. No, I suppose you're right. My circulation is failing rather badly in the extremities, and I don't think I could bear to look at it myself.”

  The adept shrugged his crooked shoulders and turned away.

  “The thorns could use some fresh blood,” he said thoughtfully, looking at the two soldiers.

  They walked together past the table and chair by the windows out onto the balcony. Once there, the one who had been Thurn killed the one who had been Veck. Then he slit the dead body's throat and upended it, so that the blood ran down the side of the thorn-covered tower.

  There was a heavy scraping sound, and the King turned to see the other walking through the open doorway.

  “What am I supposed to do?” he asked, ashamed of the piteous tone in his voice.

  “It doesn't matter,” said the other dismissively, and the gargoyles replaced the huge stone slab.

  “It doesn't matter,” the King said fiercely. “Doesn't matter.” Of course, it didn't—it was what Morlock and Ambrosia did that would matter. That was why he had been kidnapped—as a distraction.

  Ambrosia would not be distracted, he was sure. With the removal of the Protector, there was no other center for power than the one she chose to create. He, the King, had already proved to her that he might be more of a nuisance than an asset.

  But Morlock would leave everything and come to get him—would come here, now. He could hear Wyrth saying, Blood has no price! as he stood there. Whereas Morlock never said it, anymore than he said blood was red, or the sea was deep, or the sky was up there in that sort of direction. Loyalty was his life. He would come, and the Protector's Shadow would have him. (Lathmar suddenly remembered the crow he had seen eating eyeballs outside this tower.) Morlock might be on his way here at this moment.

  So the King would have to escape. He stepped over to the balcony, but he saw without surprise that the way was blocked. Even if he could contrive a rope, the thorns would cut him to shreds. The empty-faced body of Thurn was still holding the corpse of Veck over the thorns, watering them with the drizzle of his blood; the live soldier showed no more awareness of the King's presence than the dead one. He only knew he felt easier the farther he was from them.

  There was no chance he could move the stone slab blocking the entrance. It took both the gargoyles together to do that. It occurred to the King that the Protector's Shadow was afraid of something—that this whole chamber was designed to protect something important. Whatever that might be, it wasn't obviously present on the upper level, so he went down to the lower one.

  There were no windows on the lower level—apparently no doorway, either, although it was too dark to be sure. There were a few tables—almost like vats on metal stands—which shone by their own faint light. Lathmar stepped toward the nearest one.

  Woozy with disgust, he saw in the vat a brain, a heart, a pair of lungs—other organs he could not identify. They were not dead: the heart beat, the veins in the brain pulsed, the lungs breathed in and out. They were alive—placed here beyond the reach of danger. The Protector's own? Or…those of the adept, yes. That made a good deal of sense. With these kept safe he could not be killed, any more than Morlock had been able to kill the Protector on the bridge.

  The King raised his fist to break the crystal covering the vat, paused, then lowered his hand without striking. The adept would not have left him here if there were any real danger that he could do harm.

  There was a snuffling, whuffling sound in the shadows across the room, near another gently glowing vat. The King was suddenly frightened, and he fled back up the stairs.

  He was nowhere nearer escape, he reflected, at the top of the stairs. He looked at the two soldiers. Then he thought…

  “Stupidest idea anyone has ever had,” the King muttered to himself. “Mad pigs aren't in the running.” It was the only idea he could come up with, though.

 
Lathmar crept toward the soldier that had been Thurn, picking up the chair from the worktable as he went. The soldier that had been Thurn did not react when the King struck him on the back of the head with it; it took several more blows before he dropped Veck's dead body and began to stagger. The King went on hitting him till he fell, until the chair was in fragments.

  He stripped Thurn's body. With a curtain rope he bound Thurn's legs, with the knees drawn up to the chest. Then he took off his flowing nightshirt and put it on the soldier's body; he heaved the dead or unconscious form up on a couch and turned it so that the blank face was against the wall.

  “God Sustainer, what a fool I am to think anyone would be deceived by this!” he muttered, but of course he didn't think they would be. Eventually, someone would come for Veck's body. It all depended on what came through that doorway when the gargoyles opened it. If it was the Protector's Shadow or one of his minions, the Companions of Mercy, then he was doomed. If it was one of these things like Veck or Thurn had become—empty, but capable of action at some obscure prompting—then he was unsure what would happen, what they could notice. But if corpse-golems came through the door, he might have a chance.

  Getting into the mad-pig spirit of the thing, he took the other curtain rope and the fragments of the chair he had broken and made a pair of stilts, binding them to his legs. Getting up on them, he found he could walk reasonably well. Not with perfect naturalness, but who did, in this city of the dead?

  He quickly put on Thurn's tunic and armor and spent some time walking around in them. The boots and iron greaves, both carefully laced to the wood, covered the stilts, and the soldier's tunic didn't leave much of his legs bare. They weren't quite a man's legs yet, but…they might pass a quick inspection, even if the eyes had a living awareness behind it.

  He drew the soldier's short pointed blade and tried a thrust. Immediately he lost his balance and fell on his side. Laboriously, painfully, he regained his stance, reflecting that he wouldn't fight any duels while standing on stilts, not if he could help it.

  What was he forgetting? He paced across the room once or twice (for practice) while he mulled it over. Of course! The signal horn!

  Lathmar heard the stone slab scraping behind him as he strode over to the balcony. He bent down over Veck's body and grabbed the horn, yanking it to break the thong that attached it to the dead soldier's uniform. He straightened and turned as forms began to walk through the empty doorway behind him.

  Two corpse-golems. One for Veck and one for Thurn. The King nearly panicked, wondering if they were to kill and drain Thurn as Thurn had drained Veck. He wondered if he could fight them off while he was standing on stilts.…

  They stood before him and paused, as if waiting for orders. Should he speak? he wondered. Clearly not; he'd heard no one but the Protector's Shadow speak since last night. He gestured at Veck's corpse, slumped over the rail of the balcony.

  The two corpse-golems picked up the dead body and carried it away. It left a ribbon of red blood behind it; the King hoped this wasn't unusual. He followed in an imitation of a military stride that was stilted in every sense.

  He did not dare turn to see how the two gargoyles were looking at him. Would they notice him? Could they notice him? They didn't seem to be mere automatons. But did they know or perceive enough to penetrate his disguise? He didn't know. There was little he could do but play the scene out. He followed the corpse-golems to the stairway and averted his face when he had to turn.

  When they had descended several flights of stairs the King began to breathe a little easier. But he wasn't out yet. It was likely that the corpse-golems had instructions to kill him down below, to water the thorns. Clearly the adept considered Thurn and Veck mere waste matter, a fact that bothered the King on several levels, though there was no time to think about it now.

  The King tried to think about nothing as he did what he had to do next. He drew his sword and beheaded the seraphic, emptily smiling corpse-golem nearest him.

  The effort sent him staggering against a wall; when he recovered he saw that the headless golem had proceeded heedlessly on its way, still holding up its share of Veck's dead body.

  The King had expected that, though it unnerved him. He stumbled to catch up and, when he had, reached down into the severed neck and grasped the name-scroll in the chest cavity. He pulled it out through the neck and the golem fell, shorn of its pseudolife, at his feet.

  The other corpse-golem paused for a moment, then proceeded to drag Veck's body down the stairway. The King, gagging, disabled it the same way he had the other. Then he proceeded down the long stairway alone.

  He came finally to the corridor where he had entered the tower. The teams of corpse-golems were leaning motionless on their wheels, as if resting. He hated to do it—hated to draw attention to himself in any way whatever. But he lifted the signal horn to his lips and gave two blasts.

  The corpse-golems sprang to movement, if not to life. They turned their wheels; the wall at the end of the corridor rasped open; the iron stair began to unfold downward on its chains.

  Lathmar waited until the stair was completely unfolded and the golems stopped. He descended the stairs, wobbling as he went but neither hurrying nor lingering. After he stepped off he turned and blew two blasts of the horn again. As he turned away the iron stair began to fold upward again.

  The King strode stiff-legged toward the hedge gate. He stood by the wheel and blew the single blast. These golems, too, responded, turning the wheel to lift the section of hedge, the only remaining barrier between him and escape. He could see daylight on the far side.

  Then, without any visible or audible command, the golems stopped. Each golem turned its sweet dead face to the King and stared at him with dead mismatched eyes.

  His disguise was broken. Perhaps someone had found the golems and Veck's body on the stairs; perhaps it had been the signal to open the hedge gate. Either way, they knew him.

  But the way was open and he took it, charging up the blood-brown slope of bare earth. The wheel began to turn again, dropping the hedge on top of him.

  He rolled clear, and drawing his sword, he slashed the bindings of the greaves and the ropes holding his legs to the stilts. Then he shook them off (greaves, stilts, and boots) and jumped to his feet. He ran barefoot into the dead city, shedding armor behind him as he ran.

  Would he escape from an army controlled by the demonic presence who ruled the tower of thorns, in a city they knew and he didn't? It seemed extremely unlikely. The only thing that heartened him, that helped him run faster and longer than he ever had before, was the fact that the odds had been even longer that he wouldn't ever escape the tower, and he had.

  Think I'll make a mad pig my heraldic banner, he thought as he dashed up a crooked alley half blocked by ruins. He threw himself to the ground between two piles of rubble so that he could rest, and breathe, and listen.

  He heard some groups of marching feet, or thought he did, but they didn't seem especially near, or headed toward him, so he stayed put and thought.

  What would they do? What would he do, if he had all that manpower (to use the term loosely) at his disposal?

  The answer was clear: flood the streets of the city and cordon off the Dead Hills westward. The direction they would be least concerned with would be southward, toward the harbor of the Old City. Those streets were supposedly haunted by the curse of the Old Gods, the curse that came from the sea. But he would have to risk it. The sea might provide some protection from the magic of the Protector's Shadow. Besides, no one believed in the Old Gods of Ontil anymore. Did they?

  Well, he had his wind back; he should move south before the streets were all blocked. He rose to his feet, and a black-cloaked figure dropped down on him from a window above.

  Desperately, the King stabbed at it with his sword (Thurn's sword, really), landing a serious but not immediately fatal wound where his assailant's neck joined its body.

  The dark figure, whose hands were incredibly qui
ck and strong, snatched the sword from his hand and hissed, “Well struck! But I'm on your side.”

  “Morlock! God Avenger, forgive me!”

  “More to the point, perhaps, I do. I am amazed to see you alive, much less free, my friend.”

  “Well, I sort of blundered into it. Or out of it.”

  “Tell me later.” Morlock was tearing a strip from his cloak, and the King took it to bind across his neck to the opposite armpit as a makeshift bandage. “You looked as if you were headed somewhere,” Morlock commented, while he was doing this.

  “I thought I'd go south—follow the seacoast back to the living city.”

  Morlock nodded slowly. “A good plan,” he said. “But you'd have been killed by the curse of the Old Gods.”

  Now it was Lathmar's turn to hesitate. “Do you believe in the Old Gods of Ontil?” he asked.

  “Of course not.”

  The King nodded, relieved.

  “I just believe in their curse,” said the Crooked Man. “But that's the way we'll go: I've brought along some cloaks of invisibility.”

  “Wonderful!” said the King.

  “Oh, no. Quite ordinary. It occurred to me the last time I saw it.” He paused. “I'm fairly sure they'll work.”

  The sudden burst of confidence the King had felt was oozing away almost as rapidly. Saw what? Only “fairly sure” they'd work?

  “Let's go, then.” Morlock stood, a little unsteadily.

  “The streets—” Lathmar began.

  “No: we go up. I suspect I can get us to the old harbor across rooftops—or, at any rate, above ground.”

  And he did. Four years ago the King might have been incapable of following Morlock's lead, but he had grown a good deal since then, and his fencing teachers had worked him hard. Leaping from roof to roof (or, on occasion, window to window) was not so very difficult. But navigating within the ruinous buildings was tricky indeed. There was rarely anything like a floor left, and those that remained were almost never to be trusted. They followed the lines of supporting walls and inner buttresses, walking like tightrope artists. It was rare that Morlock could not find a path over even the most treacherous surface, and when he could not he found a way around. His wisdom in avoiding the streets was amply shown before they had gone more than a block: the streets were full of marching corpse-golems, captained by red-cloaked Companions of Mercy.