Blood of Ambrose Read online

  The dead baby smacked its lips appreciatively. “A hard-won meal, but a very satisfying one. In the end, I ate most of the rest of the shathes in my workshop. The others became tame, since the alternative was to be eaten. From the shathes I learned how to eat people, how to assume control of their bodies, how to use the traits and abilities of devoured entities to inhabit a legion of bodies. That was when my ambitions changed, you see. Why become the King of the Two Cities when I could become the cities themselves? Why be the Emperor when I could be the empire? To see through many eyes, to be a multitude of beings simultaneously while remaining myself, to remake the world into my own image! Would you rather rule the world or eat it?”

  “Neither,” Genjandro said.

  “You'll find out,” the baby said simply, and turned away. A hard-faced man stepped toward it, almost shyly, dragging a weeping girl with a crooked leg.

  Genjandro walked off, but he did not truly walk away. As he left the wheel behind him, he heard the dead baby's voice in his head, whispering, Was it worth it, Genjandro? I offered you the chance to go to Ambrose with what you knew, but then you knew nothing worth telling. Now you know something worth telling, but I won't let you go. I've got you now.

  Genjandro knew it was true, but he walked on. There might be a way, in spite of the voice eating him from within, to make his sacrifice worthwhile.

  He went home and had breakfast (although it was more like lunch by the time he got there). Vora's body was still there, and had opened the shop for business. He said to it, “Get out, or I'll kill myself before you can eat me.” His sincerity must have been sufficiently clear to the whispering presence within him; Vora's body walked out the door and he never saw it again.

  He wrote what he knew and guessed in a letter to Morlock, then burned it. It was too long. He wrote three more versions, each one shorter than the one before. The last was less than half a page, summarizing what he knew (without adding how he knew it or his guesses about what it implied). He trimmed off any part of the paper that didn't have writing on it, then, on the reverse, wrote Morlock's name and sketched the heraldic crest of the Ambrosii, the hawk and thorns. It looked more like a seagull over some rocks—Genjandro didn't claim to be a great artist—but it was the best he could do. Then he put a fistful of unground grain in one of his pockets, stuffed the letter in after it, and went out to find a crow.

  He saw a number of them, all dead, their heads removed. Then, on a street corner, he saw a crowd of men and women in ragged clothes, like beggars, surrounding a Companion of Mercy. One of the beggars gave it a double handful of dark bloody objects—crow heads. The Companion dropped them one by one into a bag: ten in all. He handed the beggar a work credit.

  Useful employment for the city idlers, whispered the voice in Genjandro's head.

  Despair crashed down on Genjandro then: the thing within him had won. It was eating him; it would eat the city; it would eat the world. If someone could stand in its way, harm it somehow, Genjandro was not that person. If it would ever be defeated, it would be too late for Genjandro and his city.

  His city. It was his city. Not some Vraidish king's; not some Ambrosian witch's. His. Not because he ruled here, but because he had lived here and would die here. Because he belonged to the place, the place belonged to him, by some mystic law that transcended any human rules of property or ownership.

  Had he bought and sold, lied and cheated on occasion, lived and grown rich, amassed what power he could, solely for himself, all for his own benefit? He had thought so. But that man, if he'd ever lived, was already dead. He had thrown away fortunes, destroyed his own property and that of others, spent magic gold that came from nowhere. As the King's spymaster in the occupied city he had killed and ordered others to kill to protect his organization. He had lived in danger every day. For himself? So that he could settle down in the peace after the civil war and sell rugs and die—old, childless, and rich, regretted by none?

  It had all been for the city, of which he was a part and which, he had thought, would survive him after his death. Now he knew it would not, or at least not for long, that it was already dying of the same insinuating voice, the same withering Shadow that was destroying him. His death was meaningless if his life had been meaningless; he grieved for neither but rather for the city that, till now, had given a meaning to both.

  He walked vaguely toward the river Tilion. To the extent that he was thinking of anything, he was hoping that he would be able to drown himself in the river. But he never got there.

  He was wandering down a street running westward when he looked up and realized where he was. There was a burned-out building not far off, its blackened brick walls supported by wooden struts. It was his warehouse, the one he had burned as part of the dragon ploy. He stared up at it, trying to recover the feelings of reckless amusement and triumph he had felt on that day. As he was standing there, a young boy ran into him from behind and they both fell.

  “Don't let them catch me!” the boy cried.

  “Them?” Genjandro said stupidly.

  “They're not my parents!”

  “No,” Genjandro said dully. “I suppose not.”

  The boy looked him in the face and said, “Death and Justice! You've been eaten! You're one of them!” He desperately kicked at the old man until they were disentangled from each other, scrambled to his feet, and ran off. Genjandro croaked, “Don't go in there!”

  Behind him on the street came a pair of figures, a man and a woman. Genjandro did not know them at first, but then some mark on their face, perhaps the same one the boy had seen on his, gave them away.

  “Oh. It's you.”

  “Genjandro,” said the man, in a voice reminiscent of Vora's, the dead baby's, the whisper in Genjandro's own mind.

  “You're going fast,” the woman said, in a voice which was different, but somehow the same. “A little too ripe, perhaps—but all the better for quick eating.”

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “It's most amusing,” said the man's mouth.

  “Isn't everything?”

  “Not like this,” said the woman's mouth, acknowledging Genjandro's feeble gibe with a smirk. “I've eaten the child's parents, and now I'm hunting him through the streets in their persons. The parents' awarenesses live within me and try to resist, but there's nothing they can do about it. It sets up the most delicious pattern of emotional contrasts; I wish you could experience it. But you will, soon, of course. I shall do this sort of thing citywide once I get really organized.”

  “Genjandro,” said the man's mouth, almost excited, “there's no way out of that building, is there? The windows were all on the upper floors, and the flooring and stairs are all burned away, so there's no way the child can reach them.”

  “As far as I know,” Genjandro agreed heavily. He supposed the enemy had read it from his own mind—if he could even call it his mind anymore. “There may be damage…holes in the walls,” he continued. “The boy may be gone already.”

  “Just walk around and see, won't you?” the woman's mouth said.

  Genjandro did as he was told, simply because he had nothing else to do, because nothing mattered anyway. There was a good deal of damage to the west side—there were more support beams on that side. The ground sloped downward there, toward the river.

  “Etkondel,” cried the woman's voice through the open door. “Don't go to your father. He killed your puppy. I saw him do it. Then he made me say it ran away.”

  “I did it for your own good,” barked the man's voice. “Don't let your mother have you, boy. She'll cut your balls off, if she can. You may hate me, but at least I'll let you be a man.”

  Genjandro leaned wearily on one of the supports, remembering what the builder had said—the one he had consulted after the fire.

  “Etkondel, Etkondel,” the woman's voice sobbed. “Help! He's going to hurt me again, I know he will! If you don't help me, I just don't know what I'll do.”

  “She's lying. She's alw
ays tried to poison you against me, and me against you. She's good at that. If you come out now, why, I'll let you help me with her.”

  Master Alkhendron, the builder had told him, we can't rebuild. At most we can keep the thing from falling down, and that's hard enough. The solution is to level it and build again.

  “Etkondel, I'm afraid! Please help me!”

  “Enough of this nonsense! Come out here now, boy. Don't make me come in there!”

  I understand, Alkhendron/Genjandro had said to his builder. But he felt that only now did he really understand. The city was dead, ruined, a shell propped up with great and useless effort. But if he leveled it, then the boy would be able to build again. The city was dead, but need not die.

  “Etkondel!” the woman's dead voice wailed. “I know you want to do what's right, what's in your heart! You won't leave me out here to be hurt by this horrible man!”

  The dead father's voice shouted, “I say what's right and what's wrong—the Strange Gods damn your heart and whatever's in it!”

  “Lathmar!” Genjandro screamed abruptly. “Level it, and I'll build again! The city isn't dead, it's just dead!” That was wrong, somehow, but there was no time to change it—he could feel the will of the other trying to work within him. He pushed the support beam in front of him and it fell. He pushed the next one, and it fell. He went down the line of supports, crashing into them, falling from one to the next, struggling to keep his feet so that he could knock them all down, level it all.

  Blackened bricks were falling about him like rain now. He lurched and fell and struggled to get up, but his legs were trapped by the slumping wall. A curtain of brick dropped down on him as he tried to wrench free.

  The collapse of the rest of the building killed the bodies of the woman and the man. The boy escaped through a tear in the tottering wall and ran away into the twisting streets.

  But Genjandro saw none of this; the collapse of the west wall had killed him also. He had been merchant, then conspirator and spy; now he was just another dead soldier, half buried by the city he had struggled to save and to destroy.

  A crow who knew his voice heard him shout and heard the building fall. The crow was wise enough to know that the city was unfriendly to crows and that this might be a trick. But one of the words that the voice had shouted was important; Morlock and his dwarf often used it (though the crow did not pretend, even to himself, to know what a lathmar was).

  So the crow risked descending into the cloud of mortar and ash rising from the fallen building. There was some meat among the ruins, but it was too fresh to be interesting, and two of the clumps had a dangerous smell about them.

  It was the third pile of meat that had cried out, the crow guessed. It was mostly covered with brick, so the crow couldn't tell if it had been Genjandro. The midsection was burst open, and some of that smelled most tempting, if it were not for the falling cloud of mortar dust. The fellow's clothes were torn, also, spilling the contents of his pockets. Apparently he had been carrying some mixed seed and grain in one, a practice of which the crow wholly approved. The crow was sorting through this when he found the sheet with Morlock's name on it.

  The crow squawked wearily. Why did these things always happen to him? Now he'd have to fly all the way to Ambrose—a long way to travel with night coming on. The paper looked rather large and heavy, too, a real wind-drag. He was perfectly willing to play with entities he considered his equals, and he could understand playing games with pebbles and so on, but why Morlock and others insisted on playing games with paper, across such horribly long distances and tediously regular patterns, he could not understand.

  Still, the crow was fond of Morlock. And it was a chance to get out of the city and get some clean food, without this dust and ash all over it. And there was the treaty. The crow irritably plucked the half-sheet of paper up, shook the dust of the city from his wings, and flew away from the wreckage of Genjandro and his dreams, north and west, straight as an arrow to Ambrose.

  hen I call this session of the Regency Council to order,” Ambrosia said in dry businesslike tones. “I've asked the vocates from the Wardlands to sit with us, and Commander Erl, not just as the King's chief bodyguard but as a man of resource and courage. If any of you can think of someone else who ought to be here, feel free to name him or her.”

  “Wish Genjandro were here,” Wyrth muttered.

  “So do I,” Ambrosia said clearly. She put her hand to a wrinkled, bloodstained half-sheet of paper that lay on the table before her. “But courtesy of Morlock and his feathered friends, we have Genjandro's last report. It doesn't tell us much, but what's there might be enough.”

  Morlock stirred at this, and Ambrosia turned toward him with a fierce unhappy smile. “Oh, are you awake there, brother? I thought you might have gone to sleep again.”

  The Crooked Man looked her in the eye until she looked away, a little embarrassed. “I was going to say that Genjandro's message, with the King's story, tells us what we need to know.”

  “How fast to run?” Jordel inquired. “I was just thanking God Sustainer for the Wards around the Wardlands.”

  “They're no defense,” Aloê said. “Every wall, material or immaterial, is worthless unless it's guarded by soldiers. And the soldiers are the weak points, against this enemy: they have wills that can be seduced.”

  “I'll run if I have to,” said the King in a low voice. “I'd rather defeat this thing somehow. It's eating the heart of our empire. I don't see that we'll have better luck against it in Sarkunden than we're having here.”

  Jordel cleared his throat, and said, somewhat nervously, “Well, you touch on a delicate point, Your Majesty. Our realm is a different one, and we need to look to its interests.”

  “Here it comes,” Wyrth said.

  Jordel turned to him in surprise. “It?” he said.

  “It, sir. Now that the danger is greatest and we most need aid, you discover that you have an urgent appointment in some other part of the world. We are not your allies; you have no unbreakable ties with us either of blood or”—he glanced aside at Aloê—“other fluids. Why should you not go? If—”

  “Wyrth,” said Morlock, “enough.”

  “Master Morlock, I am your apprentice. But I am also an independent member of this council. I admit it is an anomalous situation, but I believe it allows me to have my say.”

  “You aren't,” Morlock said bluntly. “You're having Jordel's, and damning him because you put words in his mouth. We've no time for that. We may have hours; we may have less. Shut up and let the Wardlanders speak.”

  There was a brief silence, and Jordel said, with unusual flatness, “We have sent messages by certain means to our peers in the Graith. We have reason to suppose that they have been intercepted. The Graith must be warned. We flipped coins and Baran lost.”

  “Or won,” Baran differed. “I will carry word to the Graith and return as quickly as I may.”

  “You'd better take Velox,” Morlock said.

  “Thanks,” Baran rumbled. “Heard about him.”

  Wyrth was pressing his clenched fists against his forehead. The King looked at him and then at Morlock. Morlock knew that Wyrth was still tormented by the memory of his fear in the grave lands, and he guessed that the King realized it, too. He nodded, shrugged, and waited.

  “Vocates,” Wyrth blurted.

  “It's all right, Wyrtheorn,” Aloê said quietly.

  Wyrth winced at this use of the intimate form of his name and laughed raggedly. “I hardly think so. You have all deserved better from me. You'll get it another time, God Avenger bear witness.”

  “Morlock,” said Ambrosia impatiently, “this is your hour. It's time for you to speak.”

  “I intend to go to the Old City and kill the Protector's Shadow.”

  “See how easy,” muttered Wyrth.

  “Kill him?” Jordel cried, amazed at the crudity of Morlock's proposal. “Which one of him? Which of the thousands he inhabits? Have we learned nothing about thi
s enemy?”

  “On the contrary,” Morlock said flatly. “We have learned everything.”

  “If you mean his name, Morlock,” Aloê interposed, “I don't see that it is so very helpful. It's true that he may have been called Inglonor—and even you, madam, can't be sure of that, I believe?”

  Ambrosia grunted. “I never met him. I don't believe so. My oldest boy was an insolent little prick, in some ways, but he didn't honor me so far as to introduce his bastards.”

  “But,” Aloê continued, “the nature changes the name. To effect a binding spell upon he-who-was-Inglonor we would need to know more than we do—perhaps the names of every consciousness he has ever consumed and made part of himself.”

  “His name is nothing,” Morlock said. “I intend to kill him, not bind him. Look, Jordel,” he said, choking off the verbose vocate's protests, “take a piece of string.”

  “Why, I don't happen to have any string at the moment,” Jordel cried.

  “He means you to consider an imaginary piece of string,” Wyrth explained.

  “He might have said so.”

  “You take the piece of string,” Morlock continued, “and you tie one end to your index finger and the other to Baran's index finger. Then, when you choose, you can move Baran's finger.”

  “Unless he resists, you know. He's awfully strong.”

  “We will say he is asleep. Or dead.”

  “Oh, dead, by all means, if you don't mind. That way I shall inherit the family estate.”

  “This represents the Protector's Shadow and his relationship with the body of someone whose awareness he has consumed. The string is the talic connection between the Protector's awareness and his subject's body. For it to be effective, it must have two ends—the one in the subject and the one in the tal-body nexus of the controlling awareness.”

  “I assume that, enjoying this experience as I do,” Jordel continued calmly, “I kill the rest of the members of this council and attach their fingers to mine with bits of string.”