CHAPTER FOUR

The Last Station

Fleeing from a nightmare, Morlock awoke entangled in the limbs of his glorious, darkly golden wife. He had, for one moment, the cruel comfort of believing that all of it was a nightmare: the dying sun, the cruel war with the Khnauronts, the deaths of so many of his friends, the dreadful murder of Earno.

But, as he lay still to avoid waking Aloê, he looked out the window at the cool silver-blue sky of spring and sorted the darkness of his dream from the darkness in the waking world. They were not dissimilar. He hoped that didn’t mean they were true dreams.

Aloê was dreaming, too, and from the expression on her sleeping face the dreams were as unpleasant as his. He was moved to wake her when she whispered, “Don’t go! You’ll never come back! You’ll never come back!”

He wondered if she were in rapture, adrift in the chill winds from the future. “I have gone before,” he said quietly, “and I always came back.”

“This is different,” she sighed. She seemed to stop breathing entirely and he was moved to alarm. But before he could act, she opened her golden eyes and looked straight into his.

“Bad dream?” he asked.

“‘Good morning, beloved,’” is the usual greeting,” she remarked, “but I suppose when a couple is entering their second century of marriage—”

“Good morning, beloved. Did you have a bad dream?”

“Yes, sweetheart. And you, too?”

“Yes.”

“Yours first.”

“Can’t remember much. My leg hurt. I was sick and—I was sick or something—”

“Don’t get coy on me now, Vocate.”

“I was vomiting. It was dark and . . . and you weren’t there. You were never going to be there.”

She was silent for a long time. “In mine,” she said, “I saw you going away in the dark. The further you went, the older you got. You were all twisted and horrible. Yes! Yes! Even more than you are now! I couldn’t stop you. I don’t know why.”

“In the dream, were you all right?”

“What do you mean? Alive, healthy, or what?”

“All that.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, opened them. “Yes, I think so. I was sorry to lose you, but I was alive.”

He sighed in relief.

She looked at him quizzically. “Is my death the worst thing you can imagine?”

“The very worst.”

She smiled gently and said, “Beloved.” But he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t say, I feel the same way, because he knew she didn’t. She did say, finally, “We’ve lost so much. We mustn’t lose each other.”

He held her close. They lay together in silence for a while until they heard Deor shouting somewhere in the stairway, “I don’t suppose anyone will want to GET SOME BREAKFAST BEFORE THEY GO TO STATION?”

The hardy Westhold steeds that they had ridden south were still enjoying the meager comforts of Tower Ambrose’s stables, but they decided to walk to Station rather than ride there. Deor accompanied them, as their thain-attendant, but he would not be allowed to speak at Station: that was a right for full members of the Graith, which Deor never intended to be.

Aloê and Morlock had broached the subject to him only last night. There were vacancies among the vocates, after the defeat of the Khnauronts, and no one among the thains was as well-respected as Deor. But he laughed at their offer of promotion. “Look, harvenen,” he said. “I am here, at the behest of the Elder of Theorn clan, to serve your interests and keep out of his beard (may it never grow thin). How could I do either of those things as a vocate? No, shut your faces. When the time comes that I can no longer be a Guardian, I will go home and raise children under Thrymhaiam, as God Creator intended.”

The day was not warm, although summer was approaching. No one felt like discussing the weather, though, so they walked mostly in silence down the winding elm-lined streets until they ran into Vocate Jordel and his brother Baran, accompanied by a gray-caped cloud of thains. No silence could long withstand Jordel’s relentless assault and they were soon talking about everything under the sun, except the state of the sun.

Where the River Road joined Shortmarket Street, they came across a company of thains armed with long spears. At their head strode bitter white Vocate Noreê. In the midst walked a dirty ragged figure, manacles on his arms and legs.

Morlock felt, and felt strongly, that anger was a weakness. But he felt its red fire infecting his eyes. He stepped in front of the troupe and said to Noreê, “Who is this?”

Stiffly she replied, “The invader I captured at Big Rock. He is a stranger in the land and here for no good purpose.”

“How do you know?”

“I know things you will never understand!”

“Everybody does. Everybody knows something that someone else does not, and never will.” He turned away from her and said to the thain nearest him, “Stand aside.”

He was prepared to draw Tyrfing and fight if need be, but there was no need. Noreê was shouting behind him, and the hapless thain glanced in terror back and forth between Noreê and Morlock. Morlock simply waited, and in the end the thain stood aside.

“Stranger,” he said to the chained man, “what’s your name?”

“Kelat,” said the stranger vaguely. “I think. I think that’s part of it, anyway.”

“You must go before the Graith and account for yourself.”

“So the vocate tells me. I will, if I can.”

“My name is Morlock.”

“I’ve heard that name, I think.”

“Eh. Show me those.” Morlock pointed at the manacles.

Kelat lifted his arms and Morlock looked keenly at the fastenings. It would be easy enough to pick the locks, but. . . . He took the locks on each of the manacles between thumb and forefinger and twisted them until they broke.

“You may be king in the North,” Noreê shouted behind him, “but you are not king here!”

Morlock ignored her blasphemy. He crouched down and broke the locks on Kelat’s legs as well. As he rose to his feet, Kelat shook off his chains and said, “Thanks.”

“It’s nothing,” Morlock replied. “Jordel,” he said, over his lower shoulder, “where is the nearest bathhouse? Zelion’s isn’t it?”

“How would I know? Why ask me?”

“You have lived in this city for three hundred years, and your house doesn’t have a rain room.”

“I keep meaning to have one put in. . . . I see your point. Yes, Zelion’s, and he’s open in the mornings.”

“Then.” Morlock closed his eyes. “Deortheorn. You will take Kelat here to Zelion’s bathhouse. See that he’s cleaned up—” there was a smear of dried blood on his temple “—and his wounds tended to. Get him some clean clothes to wear and get him breakfast. Then bring him to the Chamber of the Graith.”

“Akhram hav, rokhlan,” Deor replied. It was an act of significant discourtesy, according to dwarvish standards, to speak in a language not shared by all present. But Deor always claimed that courtesy was overrated, and this was one occasion when Morlock agreed with him.

“I forbid this,” Noreê said. Morlock turned to meet her ice-blue eyes.

“It doesn’t matter that you do,” Morlock said. “But if you choose to send one or more of your spearmen to keep watch on the prisoner, I won’t object.”

“No,” said Noreê thoughtfully. “Let it be on your head when the Graith calls for him and he is not found.”

Morlock grunted and gestured at Deor.

“Come along, you dangerous monster,” Deor said cheerily. “Let’s get you fixed up. I’m Deor syr Theorn, by the way.”

“I’m Kelat. At least . . . I think I am. . . .”

The dwarf led the mystified stranger away up Shortmarket Street. Morlock looked again at Noreê and strode through the spear-thains as if they were not there. He and the others walked on to the Chamber of the Graith while Noreê and her thains lagged a little behind.

“That was well done,” Jordel said in an unwontedly low tone of voice (for him). “I knew she was keeping this fellow prisoner, but I never thought to ask how they were treating him, I’m ashamed to say.”

“We all share that shame,” Morlock said.

“Was kind of hoping for a fight,” Baran admitted grudgingly. Morlock punched his massive arm and said, “Another time.”

“I wish you hadn’t knelt before him,” Aloê said, after a brief silence, and Jordel laughed as if this were a joke. But Morlock was pretty sure it was not. She cared much for appearances; they’d had many bitter conversations about such things.

They came at last to the city’s red, ruined wall, half as old as time. The Chamber of the Graith was there because in ancient days it had been a voluntary order to defend the city against its enemies. Now the city had better defenses than mere walls, but they remained as ruined monuments of those dark days.

The Chamber itself had its back up against the edge of a bluff over the River Ruleijn, the river that does not run into the sea.

A flight of twenty-two stone steps rose from the street to the Chamber entrance; on either side the stairs were flanked by bluestone plinths bearing granite statues of gryphons. Today, sitting beside or upon the gryphons, there were many figures cloaked in red or gray. It was the time of Station, when the Graith stood in council, and the war in the north was over. For many of the Guardians here, these were occasions for celebration. Morlock thought of the bloody mouth that had opened in Earno’s throat, and did not feel like celebrating.

Some friends of Aloê’s greeted her: Callion the Proud and Styrth Anvri, each with a single thain-attendant. Morlock exchanged polite words for a while, then clasped Aloê’s forearm and walked away. He was not in the mood for small talk. He rarely was.

He mounted the steps and entered the antechamber. Thain Maijarra was there, blocking the way to the domed inner chamber. It had been her place of honor since before Morlock was born.

“Vocate Morlock,” she said, and lifted her spear to let him pass. He nodded and entered.

The two remaining summoners, Lernaion and Bleys, were standing over by a window, conferring. Lernaion, dark-skinned, gray-haired, and lean, towered over the bent, hairless, turtle-like Bleys. They both looked over at Morlock and, apart from their snowy white mantles, the thing most alike about them was the displeasure stamped on both their faces.

“If you will pardon us, King of the North,” Bleys said in his warmest, most ironic tone, “my colleague and I would confer in private.”

Again Morlock felt the heat of anger mastering his strength. He was about to stride forward and do—something, he didn’t know what—when a hand firmly gripped his shoulder.

“Summoner Bleys,” said Naevros syr Tol, “this is the council chamber of the Graith of Guardians—that is to say, the vocates. The Summoner of the City may be here to convene us, but you are merely here by sufferance. Be a civil guest, or leave.”

Bleys smiled quietly and turned away, as if from a conversation of no consequence. No doubt he thought himself the victor, and Morlock, as he cooled, had to admit that the old man had drawn blood. But first blood was not last blood; he was an experienced enough duelist to know it.

“Thanks,” he muttered to his friend.

“It’s nothing,” said Naevros, and let him go.

The domed chamber began to fill with Guardians, red-cloaked vocates, and their attendant thains. Morlock and Naevros climbed the stairs of the dais and stood at the oval table, where only vocates and the Summoner of the City had a right to stand. They were joined presently by Aloê and her friends, and Illion the Wise soon followed.

“I met Noreê coming in,” he said to Morlock. “I’m afraid she is no longer your friend.”

Morlock smiled slightly, but did not feel amused. These bitter gray ancients and their undying hate for him. What had he ever done to earn it, except be the son of his ruthen father? But he was not like Merlin. He would never be. He had shown them and he would show them.

Summoner Lernaion mounted the steps and strode to the near end of the oval table. In a stand there rested the silver Staff of Exile. Opposite him stood the Witness Stone, and around the long empty oval stood the red-cloaked vocates.

The summoner lifted the Staff of Exile and pounded on the dais with the blunt end, calling the Station to order. The Guardians all fell silent and a few laggard vocates took up places at the long table.

As the room grew quiet, Morlock felt his spirit grow quiet. This was his place. He belonged here; he had earned it, in spite of Merlin and in spite of all the people who had hated him because of Merlin.

Lernaion said, “I summon you to stand and speak, for the safety of the land and the good of the Guarded. Maintain the Guard!”

“Maintain the Guard!” replied all the Guardians under the dome.

“The war in the north is over,” said Lernaion, “but the struggle to maintain the Guard goes on. We are met for at least three purposes today. We must decide the fate of the Khnauronts who survive: shall we kill them out of hand or expel them from our land, or is there some third choice? Then: one of our own order is dead, certainly murdered. We must chart a course of vengeance for this crime. And lastly we must investigate this stranger who came walking into the land under cover of the Khnauront’s invasion. Speak, vocates: what shall we settle first? Or is there some other more pressing matter for the Graith to consider?”

“The stranger Kelat is not here,” Morlock said. “He was in a bad way—hungry, wounded, filthy, bewildered. I sent him with my thain-attendant to be tended to. Thain Deor will bring him here presently.”

“Or not,” said Noreê drily. “In which case. . . .”

“Let’s deal with cases as they arise,” Naevros said. “I saw the man, and his condition shocked me. Are we homeless barbarians roving the unguarded lands? Even they know laws of hospitality and decency.”

“He’s not a guest,” observed Rild of Eastwall. “He’s a stranger, perhaps an enemy. Should we set him on cushions and feed him candied fruit?”

Illion the Wise said, “If we intend to put him on the Witness Stone, he should not be weak or weary. The rapport is a strain, even for the strong. What he deserves is irrelevant. We don’t judge; we defend.”

Noreê would have said more, Morlock thought, but she glanced at the faces of her peers and then stood back with her arms crossed: the debate was over. She never fought to fight; she only fought to win. Morlock respected that about her.

“Then we turn to the case of the captured Khnauronts,” Lernaion said. “Death? Exile? Some third way? Speak, vocates.”

“Exile?” said Aloê. “They are not among the Guarded. They don’t belong here. We are really sending them home, if we send them anywhere.”

“Where is their home?” asked Jordel. “Shall we question them on the Witness Stone, or are they too weak for the trial?”

“My colleague and I questioned them yesterday, with the assistance of Illion and Noreê. Some did die.”

Jordel, not the most patient man in the world, was already rapping on the table before Lernaion was done speaking. “Excuse me! Excuse me! If you are asking us to settle the question, you must settle our questions first. Who are these people? Where do they come from? Who sent them here?”

Illion said, “They mostly come from the lands east of the Sea of Stones. Many of them have forgotten what names they originally had. None of them know anything about the Wards, or much of anything else. They live to eat; that’s all they care about.”

Noreê said, “Jordel, I share your frustration. I, too, expected answers. But it may be that the true commanders of the Khnauronts were the ones whose bodies had absorbed their guts and were living on stolen tal alone—”

A storm of questions arose at this; most of the vocates were unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Khnauront anatomy. Noreê and Lernaion handled these questions capably between them, and then Noreê continued, “And so I think that the Khnauronts who survive should not be thought of as full members of their tribe, or whatever we are to call it. They were more like. . . .”

“Emergency rations,” suggested Aloê.

“Exactly, yes. They were a source of tal for the commanders when there was no other.”

“Their minds have been sculpted, I think, to this end,” Illion said. “Their emptiness and single-mindedness is unnatural.”

“Could they be cured?” asked Jordel.

“By all means, let us send them to the Skein of Healing!” cried Rild. “We can set our thains to knitting woolen underwear for their comfort! Let no expense or trouble be spared for these outlanders who broke through the Wards and invaded our lands to kill and kill and kill!”

Many of the Graith rolled their eyes or shook their heads at this hysterical ranting, but Morlock was sorry to see many vocates, and thains, too, nodding in approval.

“By all means, if you like,” said Jordel when Rild paused for a breath. “But my thought was that if they could be cured, they might be able to tell us more than they have.”

“Doubtful,” said Illion reluctantly. “I wish it were otherwise. But I think what’s gone is gone. They might be made somewhat more . . . awake than they presently are. They will never be the people they once were.”

“Then, unless it conflicts with Vocate Rild’s elaborate plans for their rehabilitation and comfort, I suggest we herd them onto a boat, sail it to the unguarded lands, and dump them on any convenient coast.”

“Might be a kindness to kill them,” Baran said.

“A cruel kindness, I guess? You’re too subtle for me brother. But I must say I can’t say that it matters much. They seem unable to harm us or anyone anymore. They seem equally unable to do themselves or anyone else any good.”

Kothala of Sandport said, “If the enemy who sent them here in the first place finds them and gives them new lifetaking wands, then they could do much harm indeed.”

This was a new thought to many, and a disturbing one.

“This is not a decision that has to be taken today,” Illion said. “Time may bring them healing, or memory, or death. We should follow at least part of Rild’s kindly suggestion and send to New Moorhope for seers who may glean more from the empty fields of their minds than I was able to do.”

Lernaion was dismayed by this, but he looked around the table and realized the weight of opinion was with Illion.

“If we put that matter aside,” Lernaion said, “what of our colleague’s death? When we take the oath of Guardians and become subject to the rigors of the First Decree, the Graith assumes the role of our protector and vengeancer. It is too late to protect our lost friend, Earno—”

Morlock, to his astonishment, heard Aloê mutter to herself, “Shut your lying mouth.” He wasn’t sure if anyone else heard her; evidently Lernaion did not.

“—who lies dead and murdered alongside the Road. What shall we do for him?”

“I could not disagree with the summoner more!” shouted Rild.

Lernaion’s dry, dark face bent with annoyance and surprise. “Some of your peers here saw him die. I myself saw his body, which lies now in occlusive stasis on the very spot where he fell. Are you saying that Earno is not dead?”

“No, of course not! But you seem to be suggesting that his death ends the threat. But it may be only the beginning! If Earno can be murdered by magic, which one of us is safe? Which one will be next?”

“Our conversation will go smoother if you address yourself to what I have said, not what I seem to have suggested. Because what I mean, I say.”

“But—”

“We didn’t join the Graith to be safe, but to pledge our lives for the safety of others,” Illion observed.

“Yes, but—”

“Rild,” Jordel interrupted, “I urge you to shut your mouth. Shall I put the question? Vocates, I want Rild to be quiet, for his good and ours. We have matters of moment to discuss.”

Rild stood back, startled and offended. His glance slid around the room and he spoke no more.

“Because, listen to me, Guardians,” Jordel continued, “I think we’re starting in the wrong place. The question is not what we should do, but who should do it. Everyone here knows what must be done. We must find out who murdered Earno and why. To that end, we must elect one of our Graith to be investigator and vengeancer on our behalf.”

“I accept your correction,” said Lernaion patiently. “Who, then? We must choose carefully. It would be a strange irony if the investigator were also the criminal.”

Jordel waved his hand. “Oh, I saw that play. And what was the point of all that stuff about his mother? I thought it overrated, honestly.”

“With equal honesty, I assure you I have no idea what you’re talking about. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter at all.”

“That’s what I was saying!”

“It isn’t, but put that aside. Who, vocates, will be your investigator, your vengeancer?”

Many, now, were looking at Morlock. He turned away from them to meet Deor’s dark, amused eye. Deor always enjoyed watching the Graith at Station, which he compared to a puppet show that was popular in his youth, where every puppet in the cast took a turn beating the others with a stick. Deor nodded when he saw Morlock looking at him. Morlock didn’t need to wonder what he would have said if they could have talked. Blood has no price! Earno was an odd man, but a rokhlan and a hero, and (after an awkward start) had been well-loved by Theorn Clan—better than he knew, perhaps.

But Morlock did not choose to undertake the task of vengeance. He said, “I name Vocate Aloê Oaij.”

Startlement flashed like lightning across the chamber. Aloê turned to look at him, her golden eyes agape, her dark, rosy lips poised for a grin.

“No one could be better for the task,” Noreê said coldly. “I say the same name.”

“God Avenger!” cried Jordel. “If Morlock and Noreê agree on something, does anything more need to be said? Anyway. Who’s shrewder? Who’s braver? Who’s more dedicated to the Guard? She was a friend of Earno—she has friends all through the Wardlands. She’s a seer and a fighter. Let me tell you this story—maybe you’ve heard it before—”

“Does anyone disagree?” Lernaion said hastily. “Aloê, are you willing to take up the task?”

Aloê bowed her head in thought. Then she said, “I accept it. God Avenger have pity on the killer, for I’ll have none.”

Naevros pounded the table and there were shouts of assent that echoed all around the chamber. Vocates left their places at the long table and went over to congratulate her. Morlock stepped off the dais to let them pass. Looking up he saw his red-cloaked, dark-skinned, golden-haired wife crowned with the stars painted on the dome’s ceiling. She seemed more than human to him in that moment, as in many others, and he laid the memory of her away in a secret temple of his mind. When the vocates drifted away back to their places he stepped up again and would have said something to her. But she stabbed him with a bitter, golden glance, and he realized that she was angry with him, though he didn’t understand why.

He shrugged and said, “Tell me later.”

“Yes.”

Lernaion rapped the Staff of Exile on the table and said, “Guardians, to order.”

“Lunch!” called out someone hopefully. The voice was disguised, but Morlock thought he recognized it as Deor’s.

The cry was echoed a couple times around the long table, and a wintry smile bent Lernaion’s brown lips. “The Guard now,” he said. “Lunch later. Guardians, I see that the stranger Kelat is with us. Let us do now as we have done before, and join our minds, strength to strength, and seek the truth in the mind of this stranger. I ask that you permit my colleague Bleys to join us at Station, so that he may prepare Kelat to bear witness.”

“Guardians!” cried a voice near the Witness Stone. “Vocates and Summoner Lernaion! I say no to this. I urge you all to say no as well.”

Looking over, Morlock saw that the speaker was Gyrla Keelmaker. Her face was red and sweating, and she leaned on the table as she shouted out her words. “Many of you know me,” she continued, “but some of you may not. I don’t come to Station to tell witty stories or make myself admired. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can go about our real work. But my brother was Thain Stockrey, and he is dead today because of this Bleys and the games he played with the Witness Stone. The Graith chose not to exile him for those crimes, though God Avenger knows he deserved it. You probed his mind with the Witness Stone and found its uncleanness to be of use to the Guard. ‘We don’t judge; we defend.’ I’ve heard it a million times. Well, I do judge, and I tell you I will not stand in rapport with that monster and the Witness Stone. Neither should you. Look at him! Look at him! How can you trust him?”

Bleys stood in a patch of chilly light from the windows. His head was bowed, his pink, hairless face frozen in a smile. The names of Kinian and Stockrey would haunt him to his grave, Morlock thought, without any sympathy at all.

Lernaion’s dark face grew darker with anger, but he spoke patiently. “Who better than Bleys?”

“Anyone! No one!” cried Gyrla. “But if you speak merely of skills, there are not a few who can see as deeply as Bleys into the unseen world, and who do not have the blood of fellow Guardians on their hands.”

“You would persuade me better if your tone were calmer,” Lernaion said in a level voice.

“When she finds no one will listen, a Guardian’s voice may grow shrill,” Noreê said thoughtfully. “I agree with Gyrla in this. Our rapport will be deeper, our union closer, if Bleys is not part of it. I don’t trust him either, and I doubt I am alone here.”

There was a general growl of agreement and Lernaion glanced thoughtfully around the table. “Very well,” he said. “It is for you, Guardians, to decide who stands at Station with you. Illion and Noreê: after Bleys, you are called the greatest seers in the Graith. Will you prepare the witness for the Stone?”

“Wait a moment,” said Jordel.

“Have you an entertaining story to tell us, Jordel?” Lernaion said, his long calm fraying to the breaking point.

“Thousands,” said Jordel agreeably, “and I’ll tell them to you some time over wine and shellfish. But for now, just one point. I don’t trust Bleys either. He keeps his white cloak thanks to you and Earno. But now Earno is dead, and for all we know, you may be next. When we are in rapport with each other and the Stone, Bleys may work some harm against us. I hope you don’t mind my being so frank, Summoner Bleys?”

“If I were allowed to speak in this assembly,” said Bleys warmly, “I would assure Vocate Jordel of my willingness to harm him. As it is, I prefer to stand silent.”

“I guess that’s irony?” Jordel said. “Anyway: who’ll guard the Guardians while we question the witness? It must be someone Bleys couldn’t get around somehow.”

“Let him do it!” said Noreê, pointing at Morlock. “They hate each other almost as much. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“. . . as much as you hate us both, my dear?” Bleys suggested in his most grandfatherly voice.

“My peer,” Lernaion said heavily, “be silent.” He turned to Morlock. “I don’t know if Noreê spoke in malice or in jest. But I think she’s right. What do you say?”

Morlock weighed his options and at length said, “Yes.” He stepped off the dais and went to stand by Bleys.

Deor came over and stood on the other side of the old summoner.

“Well, well,” said Bleys in a genial whisper that was audible through the whole room. “A scion of Theornn on each side of me. I almost feel one of the clan.”

Neither Morlock nor Deor rose to the bait, but Naevros made a throat-clearing sound of disgust and walked past the other vocates, nearly shouldering Lernaion out of his way. He walked down the steps of the dais and went to stand next to Morlock.

“I stood with Morlock in the North and I stand with him now!” Naevros shouted up at Lernaion, who was staring coldly down at them.

“We see that,” Lernaion said evenly, and turned away.

Morlock felt his face grow hot. The tangle of emotions between him and Aloê and Naevros was more than he could easily understand. But Naevros’ good opinion had always meant a great deal to him, even before he had known who Aloê was. He pounded Naevros on the arm and said nothing; there was nothing he could have said.

Bleys looked as if he wanted to say something; his mouth was working as if he had just discovered it contained a live scorpion. But in the end he, too, was silent.

They watched as Illion and Noreê led the stranger Kelat to the Witness Stone.

Morlock had been present at a handful of such events, including one that had preceded his birth, when his mother Nimue Viviana had stood on the Witness Stone. They always filled him with a certain dread. But he did not like standing aside while Aloê went into rapture without him. If there was danger, he felt they should share it. But he had made his choice and would stand by it.

Aloê noted the passing of Illion and Kelat only vaguely. Her thoughts were focused inward, preparing her mind for rapport. The union involved would be superficial, but she did not want her anger against Morlock spilling out into the minds of her peers; it wasn’t their business. She wrapped her private thoughts in a cloak of solitude and hid them deep within her.

Her insight told her that her peers were ready for rapport. She took the first, shallowest step into vision.

She was one-yet-separate with laughing Jordel, bitter Noreê, angry Gyrla, frightened Rild . . . all of them, all of them were there with her. She did not sense the stranger, though—could catch no echo of Kelat in all the voices in her head.

The rapport was odd. Fiery. The talic world was blood-bright, smoke-dark. Something was wrong. Something was wrong and it was her. She heard her voice speak the words of the dragon and knew her will was lost.

Morlock watched the faces of his peers change from wakeful purpose to sleepy emptiness. Then they changed again. Jaws clenched, fists closed and opened in unison all around the table.

“Something’s gone wrong,” he said to Bleys.

“Yes,” said the summoner, without any of his carefully artificial grandfatherly warmth.

“It’s like dragonspell,” whispered Deor. “Look at their eyes! You can see the redness through their lids.”

Dragonspell was notoriously infectious. “Deortheorn, get every thain out of the chamber instantly,” Morlock said. “You had better go as well, Naevros.”

“I have a talisman against binding spells,” Naevros observed. “But I’ll help Deor with his herding while you seers discuss . . . whatever this is.”

Bleys and Morlock waited while Deor cleared the room and the great doors of the chamber were closed and barred from the outside.

“Well, Vocate,” Bleys said. “What shall we do?”

“I don’t know,” Morlock admitted. “Tea from maijarra leaf will unfix a dragonspell, but first we must break the rapport somehow.”

“Difficult,” Bleys said, “without entering into it. Dangerous if we do: we may end up captives ourselves.”

“Kelat must be the source,” said Morlock. “But I looked him in the eyes this morning, and I would swear he was not spellbound.”

“Odd, though,” Bleys said. “Did you talk with him? I did once. Something not there. Or maybe there was something there that didn’t belong. . . .”

The Dragon spoke.

Each of the Guardians standing at the long table, and Kelat as well, opened their mouths and spoke in an ill-tuned chorus, “Greetings, Guardians! I thank you and your colleagues for stepping into the trap I so carefully prepared. I am Rulgân the Kinslayer, also called Silverfoot. My plan is to steal something from you if I can, deal with you if I must.”

“An honest thief,” remarked Bleys, with a return of his habitual irony.

“Of course!” the many-throated monster replied. “How I had hoped that you, Master Bleys, or you, young Ambrosius, would be among my captives. But I am foiled at every turn, I see.” Dozens of throats barked in unison: the dragon was laughing.

“You might not have found us so easy to master, o son of fire and envy,” Bleys replied.

“You would have thrown open the door and welcomed me in!” disputed the dragon through the mouths of the vocates. “That was the genius of my plan.”

“What do you want?” Morlock asked.

“Morlock Ambrosius, you are a practical man! I did not understand that at one time. And so I dismissed you. And then I hated you, for reasons we both know. And later I scorned you. But now I know that you were right all along: choose what you want, and give all else to get it! For me, for a long time, that one thing was knowledge. I paid much for it, as you know—mutilated and staked to the floor in that temple of the Gray Folk. But it was nothing to see all that I saw, through so many different eyes—hear what I heard through so many different ears. And to act! To murder! To love! To steal! To save! To die in triumph, and yet slink away in terror to survive! I have lived so many different lives, drunk deeply of so many wells of sin and truth. The price was nothing. It was nothing.”

As the dragon spoke through the mouths of their colleagues and friends, Morlock and Bleys by unspoken consent began to sidle toward the Witness Stone and Kelat.

When the dragon paused, Morlock said quietly, “I congratulate you.”

“I know that you do. You said something like that when you saw me in my temple, and I thought you were amusing yourself at my expense. Later, when I knew so many truths, I realized the truth of this. The greed for knowledge is greater than the greed for gold, or any mere thing.”

“Greed is greed,” Morlock said indifferently.

“So the dwarves taught you; so I taught the mandrakes, as their god. I know how to tell truths, Morlock, and also lies cunningly fashioned like truth.”

“I see that you have assimilated a broad range of literary classics.”

“You two-eyed fool, the world has been my library! I have read deeply in it. I see what you are doing now, by the way, and I let it continue only because it will do no good. But let me show you something. Yes, let me show you something.”

Every other Guardian standing at the table reached up with both hands and began to choke himself or herself.

Aloê was one of them. Morlock saw her slim hands grip her long, graceful throat and squeeze. He repressed several conflicting impulses and said, “Rulgân! Do not anger us past the point of reason. You offered a deal.”

The brown hands relaxed their grip, fell down at Aloê’s side. The same was true of the other vocates.

“I wanted you to know,” the dragon said, through Aloê’s mouth alone, “that I know what your pearl is. Yes, and I know exactly what lengths you will go to defend it—defend her. No, candidly, I do not want to anger you beyond reason.”

All the dragon-possessed Guardians spoke in their unlovely chorus, “But I have the power to take it from you, your pearl of great price. You will deal with me because you must. Or you will tolerate my theft because you must.”

“What are we talking about?” Morlock said. “What is it you want?”

“I thought it was knowledge,” the dragon said slowly through the many mouths. “If it were, I would have had it by now, and moved on to certain experiments I have often thought to try. . . .”

“Knowledge of what?” Morlock asked. Bleys’ eyes were glowing. The old seer had entered visionary rapture. Morlock hoped his conversation would distract the dragon from whatever Bleys was attempting.

“I wish to travel on the Sea of Worlds,” the dragon said in a crowd of voices.

“To gain more knowledge?”

“To continue my life! Has it escaped your notice, young Ambrosius, that this world is dying, this vast case for your so-small, so-precious pearl? I wish to flee, but I cannot. You could, but you do not.”

“I haven’t given up hope.”

“You don’t know what I know! But you could. Do you follow me? I offer my knowledge for my escape, the lives of these people you care about for my own life.”

“That is your deal? Why don’t you just take the knowledge you crave?”

“I hoped I could,” the dragon’s stolen voices said ruefully. “But I see from one, and then another, that what is really needed is skill: the skill of piloting through the shifting currents of the Sea of Worlds. Perhaps even a talent. Knowledge may be stolen, but skill must be acquired and talent is inborn. No, I will need someone to pilot me to a better world, a world with more life in it, if I am to live forever.”

“You plan to live forever?”

“How else can I know everything that can be known?”

Morlock shrugged his crooked shoulders. “You can’t!”

“You certainly won’t. This world is doomed and I know who is killing its sun. That is the knowledge I propose to trade to you, Guardians. In return I want safe passage to a fresher world. I will self-bind not to harm my pilot, whomever you choose for the task.”

The pale glow in Bleys’ eyes faded. He met Morlock’s eye, glanced down to Morlock’s sword, then inclined his head slightly toward Kelat.

For a wordless communication, Bleys’ meaning was fairly clear. He wanted Morlock to kill Kelat. That would break the chains binding the Guardians at Station.

This was a reasonable plan—in fact, a fairly obvious one. Morlock was not inclined to kill someone on Bleys’ mere say-so, however. He ascended into vision himself—the slightest step into the visionary world, with barely a thin permeable veil between his awareness and the world of matter.

He saw the Guardians at Station, a coronet of souls writhing in fierce, brilliant agony. Intertwined with their spirits was another coronet of fiery thorns. That passed through each of the Guardians at Station and returned back to its source: the stranger Kelat.

He heard a dim thought, like a voice speaking in a distant room: Bleys was right—killing Kelat would break the ring and free the Guardians. But. . . .

Morlock’s body did not move, but his awareness focused on Kelat and the Witness Stone. The coronet of fire passed out of Kelat and through the Guardians and through Kelat again, like a great wheel. But there was a smaller spiked wheel of flames that passed between a fiery locus in Kelat’s brain, through his arms, into the Witness Stone, and out of the Stone into Kelat’s other arm.

Morlock’s mechanically inclined imagination saw them as meshing gears of fire. Break either one, the device would be powerless. . . .

He drew Tyrfing. With the blade to focus his power, he could move a little, even in deeper rapture than this. He approached the Witness Stone.

Rulgân shouted out threats and promises through the many mouths he had in thrall, but Morlock did not heed them, could not really hear them: he felt their vibrations in the coronet of fire.

He dropped out of visionary rapture. He swung his sword and struck his target: the Witness Stone.

“No, you fool!” screamed Bleys when, too late, he realized Morlock’s intent.

The Stone shattered. The Guardians cried out in many voices—not their own, but not all one any longer.

“I am broken in pieces!” shrieked Noreê.

“Your pearl will dissolve in the wine of death, fool!” snarled Illion.

Kelat simply screamed and screamed without words.

Morlock jumped up on the dais next to the Stone and the screaming stranger.

Kelat’s crazed eyes fixed on Morlock and his sword. “Kill me!” he begged. “It’s in me! Inside of me! It hurts so much! Oh, Death and Justice, kill me now!”

Morlock, no particular friend to Death or Justice said, “No.” He struck Kelat strategically on the side of the head and the stranger fell from the dais to the floor. Morlock jumped down to make sure he hadn’t broken his neck in the fall and was relieved to find he was still breathing.

Next to the dais, Bleys was weeping over the fragments of the Witness Stone like a child whose favorite toy has been broken. “Why did you do it?” the summoner sobbed. “Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know what’s been lost? To save the life of an invader, an outsider, mere bait in a trap, you have destroyed long ages of accumulated wisdom!”

Morlock looked down at the groveling old man with a mixture of pity and contempt. “The trap will lead us to the trapper, Bleys. And if this is the last age of the world, your accumulated wisdom will disperse in darkness anyway. Look to the stranger! Don’t let him die or awake again.”

Morlock ran around the long oval of the dais until he reached Aloê. She was slumped across the Long Table, her limbs spasming wildly. Naevros was already standing over her, but he stood back as Morlock approached. Morlock vaulted onto the dais and picked his wife up in his arms.

Her eyes were open but wild. Her limbs were still thrashing, like a baby who hasn’t learned how to use her arms and legs. On her throat were dark handprints, and on one he saw a deeper cross-mark: the imprint of the ring on her finger, the ring he had made for her.

He wondered if he should go into vision and try to search for her spirit. Who could advise him? Illion, Noreê, and Lernaion were as bad as this or worse. Bleys was babbling like a dotard. Earno was dead. . . .

Aloê’s golden eyes focused on him.

“Crazy bastard!” she whispered hoarsely, and bit him on the upper arm.

Then he knew that all would be well.