A Guile of Dragons (29 page)

Morlock breathed deeply. The air was clean and cold; he could see his breath. In vague curiosity, he rode up the black hill to look more closely at the dragon's bones.

Coming upon the head of the dragon, he saw with surprise that every tooth in its mouth had been smashed. Deliberately smashed; he could see the lines of the mallet-strokes from where he sat in the saddle.

He turned away with a sinking feeling. So obviously purposeful an act had not been done out of mere malice. Were the dwarves, even now, drawing the sentinel dragon from the Coriam Lakes, and smashing the corpse's teeth in their sockets, one by one? The notion disturbed him. Dwarves knew more about dragons than he had ever realized—far more than they had ever taught him. After his journey through dragon-infested Haukrull their reticence seemed somehow sinister. He had been taught that the Longest War was a conflict between . . . well, alien races, totally opposed peoples . . . good and evil. Perhaps it had been something more complicated: civil war—or some conflict closer and bloodier still. A family quarrel?

Wishing they had told him, he realized sadly that he thought of them as
them.
He was no longer one of them, had never really been, and they (wiser than he) had known it long ago.

Feeling rootless, he sensed a loss of purpose. He knew he should rouse his horse and move south with Earno's message. Yet nothing moved him to do this. In fact, he reached for the letter, broke its seal and read it.

It was addressed to a member of Earno's faction. It requested that the vocate gather a few colleagues and come north “as soon as is convenient.” In a postscript Earno suggested that they begin proceedings to accuse, “one Morlock Ambrosius, the bearer of this letter” of impairment of the Guard. It was a curt and matter-of-fact message. There was nothing in it that suggested the actual facts, however: that the north had been invaded by dragons, that these had captured or killed Summoner Lernaion and his companions, that Earno himself was preparing for mortal combat with the master dragon.

Morlock lifted his face toward the gray fire-broken mountains of the west. That was the way he would go to deliver the letter: west, then south. (Earno's partisan lived in the Westhold.) He would have to pass Three Hills, where Illion lived. He felt, suddenly, that it would be wise, wiser than he knew, to simply do as he had been told. That way it would all work out, though perhaps not as Earno or anyone else had envisioned. Perhaps it would be wise.

But he did not feel wise. It occurred to him that he was still thain-attendant to Earno and that (if the battle with Vild Kharum was not to be utterly doomed) he would need a weapon. There were many of these under Thrymhaiam, of course, and if there was need of another, then another could be made. But in that moment Morlock remembered his dream, in which he had used the sword Gryregaest to slay a dragon—Gryregaest, which (so the songs said) his
ruthen
father had left upon the Hill of Storms a millennium ago.

Morlock tore the letter in half and dropped it beside the dragon's bones. As an afterthought he returned to the grave of the
rokhleni
and took the battered black shield of the Ambrosii from the marker. Then he turned his horse and rode away south, toward the dead gray border of the gravehills.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

Guardians

T
he air was suddenly thick with the sounds of the Dwarvish language.

“
San ralem hedra mat
,” the Eldest Tyr was saying urgently as the door to his chambers swung open. “
San ralem hedra hÅ·n
—” He was addressing Vetr, his oldest son.

Deor, standing in the corridor outside, drew back instinctively. His title-of-authority,
doron onedra
(“kin-councillor”) was no mean one. But his actual seniority, based on his age and kin-relationship to the Eldest, was much lower. As a matter of course, he knew of the lack of sympathy that prevailed between the Eldest and his oldest son, who would one day succeed him as ruler of the Seven Clans. But, like others, he did not care to think of it, and he took care to avoid witnessing scenes that were none of his business.

“Remember my words!” the Eldest was saying to his heir. “Remember them well—”

“Those words are not for me,” Deor broke in, in an agony of embarrassment. “Permit me to withdraw!”

The Eldest looked from his son to Deor in surprise, although the younger dwarf was here at his summons. He put out his hands and said words of welcome—even relief. If he had been speaking another language (he was fluent in several) he might have said merely, “Deor, I'm glad you've come.” Dwarvish being a language rich in metaphor, what he actually said was, “
Resh tornet, Heimar ingranat lo.
” (Literally, “If the sun had risen, [or] the King had just been crowned.”) Deor understood him well enough, although he preferred a plainer style himself, and stayed where he was.

Vetr was less welcoming and less formal. He curtly nodded at Deor and, not noticing his father in any way, walked off down the corridor.

“Never mind,” said the Eldest, leading Deor into his chambers. “He has cause for his feelings. He's a good son; he'll be a good Eldest.”

“An excellent son,” Deor said mechanically, glancing around the room. He saw the summoner Earno seated at a table near an inner door, staring fixedly at a candle that provided the room's only light. “I beg your pardon, Summoner,” he said, speaking in Wardic. “I didn't see you . . .” His voice trailed off. The summoner didn't seem to notice his presence.

Deor looked at the Eldest. “Does the summoner understand us?” he asked in Dwarvish.

“No, not even if we spoke their Othertalk. But let's stick to Dwarvish, eh? The words will come more readily.”

Deor nodded slowly. He turned back to the summoner, who was still staring at the candle.

“Look in his eyes,” Tyr commanded.

The Eldest was the Eldest—but all the same, “I would rather not,” said Deor. “He is under a dragonspell?”

“Yes.”

Deor was tempted to ask about the state of fascination that Earno was in and how the Eldest had established it. But the Elders have their secrets, and there were more urgent questions. “Since when?” he asked.

“I do not know. I suspect since the first night he was here.”

Deor tried to remember when that was, it seemed so long ago. Then he remembered: that was the first night the dragons had attacked Thrymhaiam.

“Well,” he said. “I do not like this, Eldest Tyr!”

“No more do I.”

“How long have you known, if you choose to tell me?”

“Since this afternoon, when Morlock left.”

“How did you know?”

“I guessed it when I read the letter. After that I took certain steps.”

“‘The letter'? Earno's letter? Morlock showed it to you?”

“Not exactly. It's on the table yonder.”

So it was. Deor went and picked it up. It was torn in half. He held the pieces together and read it.

He turned to his Eldest. “How did it come to you?” he demanded. The question was blunt, brutally blunt from one so junior to one so senior. But he had given it to Morlock himself. The thing touched his honor; he had a right to know.

The Eldest was not annoyed. “Morlock read it and tore it apart on Rokhfell of Southgate,” the old dwarf said. “I was watching him, although he did not seem to notice me.”

“What did he say when you spoke to him?”

“I didn't. I was with the work parties, some distance away. By the time I reached Rokhfell he had ridden away.”

“West?”

“South. I expect he means to raise the alarm in other holds. We think none of our messengers survived, you know—but he might, as he did in Haukrull vale. And he has his obligations to the Graith.”

Deor nodded in agreement. “The very thing. Earno must be a madman. Morlock a traitor!”

“Earno is spellbound. That is a kind of madness, an induced one.”

“Let's
ex
-duce it. If we cure him perhaps we can send a message—”

“Cure him? How do you propose to do that?”

Deor was surprised. “Why—as Earno himself cured me. As I cured Vendas.”

“Is Vendas cured?”

Deor was silent. He had looked in on Vendas that morning.

“I've thought on this, Deortheorn,” the Eldest said. “I have thought too much, maybe. Why did Earno's suspicions take the form they did? Plainly: because, before the spell was placed, they had
already
taken this form. Before Earno arrived at Thrymhaiam he suspected Morlock of treason.”

“But why?”

“Morlock is an Ambrosius. He is Merlin's
ruthen
son and only heir. You are young, Deor—almost as young as Morlock. You do not remember Merlin. But I do. When Merlin finished his apprenticeship with Bleys, there were few in the world who could teach him anything. Those few were the master makers of the Seven Clans. Long he dwelt here under Thrymhaiam, and many times he returned here thereafter to learn and to teach. I came to know him well. And Morlock is Merlin reborn—at least, no one could look at the one without constantly being reminded of the other. So it must have been with Earno.”

“But—”

“Let me finish, Deortheorn. Morlock is now
rokhlan,
a
dragonkiller
”—he used the Wardic word—“and for some reason this infuriates Earno, that an Ambrosius should be acclaimed as a dragonkiller. Deep within his memory, too deep for me to read the matter clearly, dragonkilling and Merlin's exile are closely linked. Earno sees himself always as vocate and dragonkiller, Ambrosius always as summoner, traitor, and exile. But now we have an Ambrosius who is also a dragonkiller, and may one day be a vocate.”

“I don't understand,” said Deor. “Morlock is not Merlin. And no matter what Morlock achieves, Earno is still
rokhlan
and summoner.”

“It is deeper than reason, Deor. Morlock and Merlin are both Ambrosius. And it is as if Ambrosius the exile has returned and is taking over parts of Earno's life. That is how he sees it, at any rate. That is why I say
dragonkiller
, and not
rokhlan
—that is the word Earno uses in his own mind; he is besieged by it, barricaded behind it, imprisoned in it. Thus he has identified himself from his first youth—as the dragonkiller. But now he must confront another, claiming the same title. If he does not prove his claim to it once again, and repeat his old achievement of exiling Ambrosius, then Ambrosius may complete his theft of Earno's life by exiling and supplanting a summoner—Earno himself.”

“Nonsense.”

“Madness,” the Eldest corrected. “Like Ven's, an induced one. I think that, before the spell took effect, Earno's deeper feelings were under control; he was willing to treat Morlock at least fairly, though by no means generously. But now the spell has changed his mind. Who can say his sick belief, the madness infesting his mind, will vanish when the spell is loosed? Who can say that it will ever vanish? Its roots are very deep.”

Deor was silent for a time. The problem seemed insoluble. But the Eldest had called him here for a reason.

“What command has been placed on Earno?” he asked Tyr.

“None, so far as I can tell. But it seems that his own latent compulsion about proving himself the sole dragonkiller has taken the place of an external command, fixing the spell in place. He insists on being allowed to go to Haukrull and challenge the master of the guile.”

“Oh. Oh. I see,” said Deor, for he did at last, and looked away.

“I was certain you would," the Eldest said. “Yes, it is a fearful crime. Earno is a summoner,
rokhlan
, and, more importantly, our guest. We cannot simply send him under the mountains to die. But Morlock is our
harven
kin, entrusted to us by his
ruthen
mother and father. We must defend him and we will.”

“One of us must go with Earno, then.”

“Yes. As squire, and guide, and also to ensure that he
does
go. Thus those-who-watch will see that we are no more sparing of ourselves than we are with Earno. Perhaps that will earn us forgiveness.”

Deor doubted this. But he did not otherwise disagree.

“Only one may go,” Tyr said. “As Eldest that is my word. The Longest War has come again to Thrymhaiam, and no one must be permitted to simply throw his life away. Beyond that, I must consider who may claim the right or obligation to go—”

“I claim both,” Deor said desperately. He turned again to face the Eldest, who seemed as grimly determined as himself.

“The choice surely falls between you and me,” the Eldest replied. “I saw that at once. We will settle the question now, for Earno must be permitted to depart before the sun returns.”

He held out his fist and opened the fingers of his hand. On his broad gray palm lay a golden coin. “Shield or skull?” the Eldest asked. “You choose and I will throw.”