Blood of Ambrose Read online

  “Lorn—it's dwarvish!” the King said, not meaning the adjective literally. (It was a general term of praise.) “It must be unique.”

  “Dwarvish it just might be,” Lorn replied, “but—with respect, Your Majesty—unique it's not. Why, I've seen dozens of these things around the city in the last few calls.* Old Genjandro by the market has been selling them like loaves of bread. But I never heard one speak until today. When I did…I had to buy one. Got it from some peddler in an alleyway.”

  “Heard one?”

  Lorn, by way of answer, carefully put the crow figure down on the table in the center of the room. After a moment, it flapped its wings twice and croaked a few syllables. The King started in surprise and said, “How does it do it? Is it alive?”

  “I don't know, Your Majesty. But—your courtesy—please listen.”

  The bird flapped its wings and croaked. There was a pause of perhaps two heartbeats, and it did so again, but the croaked syllables were different.

  “Your Majesty,” said Lorn, “my mother's parents were Coranians. I've never told anyone that, but it's true. They kept to the old ways, and every day they spoke at least three hundred words in…in that language of theirs. The one from the Wardlands.”

  Lorn paused, and in the interval of silence the crow figure croaked again.

  “Lorn!” the King cried. “You're right! It's the secret speech!”

  The soldier winced at the King's bluntness, but nodded. “I only know a few words. But I know you've been taught more.”

  The King raised a hand for silence. In truth, the recent political upheavals had played havoc with his lessons. (His language tutor had been an early victim of the Protector's purge.) But the message was simple, clear, and apparently meaningless.

  “It says, vengeret pel, and then, ostin shae,” the King reported finally. “That should mean: there is light under the wings. Or maybe: there is hope among the feathers. I don't really—”

  “But it's obvious, you'll forgive my saying so, Your Majesty,” Lorn said. He picked up the crow and turned it upside down. Under the left wing there was a design etched into the metal of the figure. Instinctively he rubbed at it with his thumb. Now the etching blazed out gold against the ebony metal of the figure: a bright hawk in flight over a branch of shining thorns.

  “The crest of Ambrosius!” exclaimed the King.

  Suddenly the crow took flight. It spun one swift circle around the King's head and plunged toward the window. It burst through the slats of the closed shutter and was gone in the night.

  For the next few moments they were both speechless. But neither needed speech to understand the signs: the symbol only Merlin or his children would dare to use, magic, a crow…

  “Merlin's children,” said the King finally. “My Grandmother. It's not just the Protector after me. They're trying to find me, too!”

  “I'm afraid so, Your Majesty,” said Lorn. He was wearing his “bad news” expression again.

  That same evening a similar conversation took place in the palace called Ambrose.

  “It's quite simple, Lord Urdhven,” the Protector was told by his poisoner. “Turn the crow upside down. Spread its left wing. See the design? Rub off the enamel; yes. Now it comes clear.”

  “I recognize it,” the Protector said with distaste. “It's the crest of those crook-backed bastards.”

  “More precisely: the crest of the Ambrosii.”

  The black crow figure shot out of the Protector's hand, flew a tight circle around the poisoner's head, and departed out the nearest window into the dark of early evening.

  “Where is it going?” the Protector demanded, his voice level.

  “They all go to the same place, Lord Urdhven, which is the same place they all come from: Genjandro's shop, adjoining the Great Market.”

  “Who is this Genjandro?”

  “An Ambrosian sympathizer, apparently. He was one of the thousand invited to Ambrosia's trial.”

  The Protector's face darkened at the mention of that fiasco.

  “Genjandro, since then, has been selling these toys for practically nothing, in lots of a dozen. There are hundreds in the city as we speak.”

  “How do they work?”

  Steng actually laughed. “Death and Justice! I don't know. There aren't ten people alive who do, I expect. But their purpose is clear enough: the Ambrosii are trying to make contact with the King and his supporters in the city.”

  “That must not happen.” The Protector pondered the problem briefly. “If the Ambrosii are not at the shop, they have an agent there. I'll send a troop of soldiers to the place. Anyone present will be taken and put to the question. You'll ask the questions, Steng.”

  “A wise plan, my lord,” said Steng with satisfaction. He rather enjoyed questioning prisoners; he'd learned a good deal about people by watching them under torture.

  “You've done well, Steng.”

  “Thank you, Lord Urdhven.”

  “But never mention that business at Gravesend Field again. I won't have it.”

  “Yes, Lord Protector,” said the poisoner humbly. His interest in torture didn't extend to undergoing it himself.

  “One of your crows has come back, Morlock.”

  “Give it some grain and ask what it's heard.”

  “Not a real crow. One of the little machines you and Wyrtheorn made.”

  Wyrtheorn and Morlock were making toys in the back of Genjandro's shop. But at this news they downed tools and went into the front.

  Genjandro and Ambrosia were standing on opposite sides of the counter with the gleaming black crow figure between them.

  “The wing?” Morlock asked.

  “The paint's been rubbed off the crest,” Ambrosia told him. “A single swipe by a thumb considerably larger than Lathmar's.”

  “Well observed,” Morlock conceded, looking for himself.

  “Canyon keep her observations,” Wyrtheorn swore. “That just means another false trail. Or a trap.”

  “Probably,” Morlock agreed. “Still: it might be Lorn. Find one, find the other.”

  Ambrosia was dismantling the crow with the swift skill of long practice. At the figure's heart was a flame in a crystal box. The flame, burning parallel to the ground, was pointed north and west toward the city's poorer quarter…or to Ambrose on the city's northwest edge, or perhaps the open country beyond that.

  The flame had been kindled when someone voiced recognition of the Ambrosian crest on the underside of the crow's wing, and it would direct itself continually toward that spot where the recognition had been voiced. Of the hundreds of mechanical crows Morlock and his apprentice had tirelessly constructed at a feverish pace in the seven months after Ambrosia's trial and the King's disappearance, perhaps three dozen had returned to Genjandro's shop. All of these had been activated by unregenerate Coranians, or perhaps by accident. But their startling behavior had stimulated the most extraordinary rumors in the city, and had directed unwelcome attention toward their source, Genjandro. He had stopped selling the crows some time ago, but all four expected at any time a visit from the Protector's Men. It was this expectation that sparked Wyrth's next suggestion.

  “Let's get the hell out of here.”

  “I can't get out,” Genjandro observed mildly.

  “You can. We can set you up in a new place with ten times the stock. Tell him, Morlock.”

  “We don't lack money,” Morlock conceded. “But we must follow the trail, Wyrtheorn.”

  “The trail is following us, Morlock. I tell you I don't like it. Trust me; the Protector's Men come calling tonight.”

  “One of us must go,” Ambrosia stated. “But at least one of us must stay.”

  Morlock nodded. “They may come here. The shop has become unpleasantly notorious.”

  “Let one go,” Genjandro suggested. “The rest of us will wait here. All will share the risk. When the quester returns, we will consult our common interest.”

  “Well said,” Ambrosia approved. Morlock n
odded. Wyrtheorn issued a crackling Dwarvish polysyllable, but did not seem to disagree.

  “Then,” Genjandro said, bringing forth a worn brassy slug from an inner pocket, “will the Lady Ambrosia make the call? Face or shield?” And he spun the coin toward the rafters.

  The King was alone. It had taken an unthinkably long time, but he had finally persuaded Lorn to go to Genjandro's shop.

  “We're well enough off,” Lorn had kept saying stubbornly. “We don't need those damned Ambrosii.”

  “Lorn,” the King reminded him, “I'm an Ambrosius.”

  “You're likewise heir to Uthar the Great!” Lorn insisted. “Your father would have been ten times the Emperor he was if your honored ancestress had let him learn to wipe his own nose when the snot ran out.”

  “Lorn!”

  “Your Majesty, it's truth and time someone spoke it. Your dad spent half his life being nursemaided by Lady Ambrosia and the rest of it being led around by his wife and his wife's brother. That's why the empire is in the hole it's in today. Urdhven's a traitor and a kinslayer; there's no forgiving that. But it's also true he was tempted too far. Your Majesty, no one but the Emperor should get that close to the throne.”

  “I'm not the Emperor!” the King shouted. “There is no Emperor!” I don't want to be Emperor! he longed to add. To hell with the empire!

  “If Your Majesty would be a little more quiet—these walls are not made of marble, nor masonry either.”

  “Then any listener has already heard too much,” the King said, but more calmly (and quietly). He wanted to throw himself at this stupid soldier and scream Bring me my Grandmother! But he owed this stupid soldier his life, over and over. Besides, hysteria would convince Lorn of nothing. And he was not stupid. He was not stupid. But he wasn't seeing things as they were, either.

  “Lorn,” said the King, “what can we do by ourselves? Nothing, which is exactly what we've been doing. We'll sit here in this room or another like it, eating salt beef and stale biscuits until someone recognizes one of us and betrays us both.”

  “Your Majesty, the soldiers—”

  “What can they do?” the King interrupted. “You yourself told me my uncle is killing them whenever they say a word he doesn't like. Their officers are all with the Protector. As we sit here, I might as well be dead and buried to them.”

  “The people—”

  “Lorn, in the name of—of Fate, don't you see what I've said for the soldiers goes double for the people?”

  “If we have time we can work something out,” Lorn said stubbornly.

  The King suppressed an impulse to tear at his hair. “Lorn,” he said finally, “I'll always welcome your advice. How could I not? Your wisdom and courage are all that's kept me alive these past seven months. But the choice is mine to make. Lorn, I order you to go.”

  The soldier glared mutinously at him for a long, tense moment. Then his glance dropped, and the King knew he had won. Lorn armed himself and left a few moments later without saying a word. The King heard him cursing incoherently as he descended the stairs outside.

  Now the King had been alone for hours and it was long after dark. He was restless and bored and tense all at once. He had waited many days for nothing at all, in this same room, with nothing to do but exercise and stare at the wall. Somehow it was harder to do now, for a shorter time and with a greater expectation.

  That was what led him to the windows. Lorn had told him never to open them at any time. But it was after dark, and soon they would be leaving here forever. And he was bored.

  He opened the window shutters and peered out. Dull as it might seem to some, the city street at night was a world of adventure to him. He had been shut in every day since their escape from the Protector; in a sense he had been shut in his whole life.

  The street was a channel of darkness below. There were no streetlamps and no traffic. The only light came from lit and open windows; there were few of these and none of them were on the ground level. He stared, fascinated, into the shadows, hoping to catch a glimpse of some passerby. But if there were any passersby, he couldn't see them.

  There was someone down in the street, though, sitting at the front of a cart with its load covered by canvas. At least the King thought there was someone there: the figure was motionless and heavily cloaked; the street was dark.…He couldn't be sure.

  Suddenly a window lit up just above the cart; light fell red upon the seated figure. The King saw, too, a dense uneven fringe of splayed stiff fingers lining the edge of the cart, thrusting out from under the canvas.

  It was a death cart. The figure seated in front was a Companion of Mercy. The King goggled a bit at the red robes, mask, gloves—he had rarely seen these figures belonging to the city's night.

  The Companion still hadn't moved. His (?) back was to the light, and shadow fell across the masked face. The King wondered if he had been struck dead by one of the hundred illnesses that killed without ceasing in the poorer quarters of the city. But alive or dead the Companion did not move.

  Presently gentle hoofbeats approached from farther up the street; they could only be heard because all else was so quiet. Another death cart appeared, two red-clad Companions seated within it. The King wondered that the cart moved so stealthily, then realized that the wheels of the cart and the hooves of the horses must be padded. The new cart pulled alongside the stationary cart and halted. If the Companions spoke the King did not hear them. But the first Companion gestured with a red-gloved hand, moving for the first time, and the other Companions turned their masked faces away from the light. After a moment the King realized the Companions were not merely looking toward him, but at him.

  That thought, in the chill blue air of evening, was menacing. He was alone. The most powerful man in the empire desired his death above all things. And, beyond all that…there was something strange about the red-clad Companions as they watched him and did not move, as they waited and watched him while the night grew darker.

  He wanted to back away from the window, but he was afraid to move. Suppose he left their sight, and they decided to seek him out? The thought of those red-clad figures at the door of his room was terrifying. He decided not to leave the window until Lorn returned.

  Suddenly he wondered if Lorn would return. Perhaps they had him already. The King wanted to make sure the door was bolted—had he locked it after Lorn left? Would it be worth the risk to leave the window for a moment, just to check?

  With dreadful gentleness, hoofbeats arising from the darkness of the street announced the arrival of another death cart. The King watched with fascination as it appeared in the vague circle of light below. The two Companions seated within it were already staring at him as they reined in beside the other two death carts.

  A frightful thought occurred to him. The second and third death carts each had two Companions. But the first, the one that had been outside his window since before he had opened it (the crow! they had seen the crow crash through the shutter!)—the first cart had only one Companion. Where was the other? Where had it gone?

  The conviction seized him that the missing Companion was coming for him, that the others were merely waiting for their missing peer to bring him down to them.

  Now every shadow seemed tinged with red—a high hood above red-gloved hands reaching for him. He felt he must go to the door—was something already moving stealthily in the room behind him? But he could not move a muscle. He could hardly breathe. He certainly could not speak. And if he called…who would come for him?

  And so he watched, motionless, in speechless horror, as a gloved hand with long fingers reached over his shoulder, clamped itself across his mouth, and drew him, sobbing, back into the darkness.

  * * *

  *A “call” is one half-period of the moon Trumpeter, or 7.5 days. See appendix C.

  hose birds were a bad idea,” Wyrth was saying morosely. If I never have a worse I'll die a happy dwarf.”

  “Not inherently bad,” his master disagreed. “We all un
derestimated the number of Coranians in the city.”

  “Of course no one boasts of it. Might as well boast of being a dragon-worshipper back home under Thrymhaiam. But they remember, those crafty bastards. Hundreds of generations in exile, and they still understand the speech of the Wardlands! How many of them are Urdhven's liegemen, do you suppose?”

  Morlock shrugged his twisted shoulders. One would be too many, and they both knew it.

  One of the iron crows lay before them on the counter of Genjandro's shop. It had flown through the door less than a hundred heartbeats after Ambrosia's departure. They had immediately shut up shop and had been discussing what to do ever since.

  “At any rate,” Morlock decreed, “no one of us will go to investigate this crow.” Its flame pointed in more or less the same direction as the last, toward Ambrose, and all of them felt the coincidence ominous. “It may be an attempt to separate us,” the Crooked Man added. “We will wait for Ambrosia's return and look into this together.”

  “Ach, Master Morlock. Ambrosia may already be in the Protector's hands.”

  Shaking his head, Morlock replied. “I await her here. You and Genjandro may go, if you wish.”

  “Hursme angaln khore?”* Wyrth quoted the Dwarvish proverb. “Blood has no price! I'll stay.”

  Genjandro's wistful expression suggested he was thinking of his own blood. But, “She would wait for us,” he said. “I'll stay.”

  Morlock nodded matter-of-factly. It was then they heard the soldier (all three of them heard the clanking of his mail as he approached) step up to the door of the shop and pound on it with his fist.

  “Genjandro,” Morlock said calmly, “open the door.” He loosened his sword in its sheath as he spoke. The dwarf reached out, and his fingers closed on a bar of lead that Genjandro used as a counterweight. Then the merchant threw open the door and stood back.

  The light from the shop lamp fell on the face of the soldier outside.