A Guile of Dragons (8 page)

“Oh.” Morlock blinked and shrugged. “I thought I invented it.”

“You did, it seems. Someone else just did so first. But I don't see what this has to do with your explosive seedstone.”

“Oh. That.” Morlock's face twisted with unhappiness, anger, shame. “We were drawing matrices for seedstones and—Does Naeth know about
multidimensional geometry
?”

“Doubt it.”

“Well. I was trying to explain to him about the ur-shapes. Because it matters for the matrices. The matrices apply power to the focus in the heart of the seedstone, creating the bloom of matter, but if you used ur-shapes you could draw different types of matrices. They might apply new levels of power, create new kinds of stone. He—he—wouldn't listen. So I. So I. So I.”

“So you completely destroyed the work-chamber and the structural integrity of several walls.”

“I guess. I need to know more about
multidimensional geometry.
Can you teach me?”

“No,” Tyr admitted, “or at least not much. And as far as I know, no one has applied it to seedstone-crafting, so I ask you to tread carefully there. That runaway exothermia was like nothing I have ever seen.”

Morlock nodded, visibly storing away the new words for later use and thought. “What a disaster,” he reflected, after a long stretch of thoughtful silence.

“Not altogether,” Tyr said, drawing out the gem from his pocket. The surface was dark red, like a garnet, but there was a deep golden flaw running down to its heart.

Morlock's gray eyes glared at the thing with distaste. “You should get rid of it. It is ugly, ill-made, possibly dangerous.”

Tyr looked mildly on his ugly, ill-made, possibly dangerous son. “I collect such things, though,” Tyr said, “and I don't lightly get rid of those I've become attached to. I'll keep this, if you don't mind.”

“Everything that's mine is yours,” Morlock said unhesitatingly. Then he hesitated. “But that thing . . . the core may fail. I scripted the repatterning recklessly, not knowing what I was doing. If it is unstable there might be another runaway exothermia . . . or . . . what is the opposite? When things grow colder?”

“Endothermia, I think.”

“That, then.”

“Well, you will study, and someday perfect the design. I'll keep this against that day.”

“Who will teach me?” asked Morlock. He hardly needed to say,
Not Naeth, I hope:
it was written on his usually inexpressive face.

“I think to send you south, to New Moorhope. You can learn much of geometry there from those-who-know, and healing, too, if you choose, and many other things.”

Morlock's face lost all expression again. “I am to be sent away.”

“Morlocktheorn. This is an opportunity, not a punishment. You have talent, but not skill. You could have both. Think of this.”

Morlock nodded in acceptance.

They talked of some other things, and Tyr rose to go without ever mentioning the other thing he had in his pocket, the medallion he had removed from Morlock's neck.

On it was an image of Morlock's
ruthen
father, old Ambrosius. Morlock had said something disrespectful about the old man last year, and Tyr had ordered the boy to make this reminder of his first father and wear it for a month. Nothing cast more shame on a
harven
family than raising a child who scorned their
ruthen
parents. At first, when he'd seen the medallion still about Morlock's neck in the burning chamber, Tyr had been relieved: perhaps the lesson was taking root. Then he looked closer.

The image was defaced: the eyes were gouged out and the rest of the face was slashed into a blur by a thousand or more savage strokes with a variety of tools, blunt and sharp.
MERLIN
AMBROSIUS
had once been inscribed under the face.
MERLIN
was completely scratched away: a ragged trench took its place on the medallion's surface.
AMBROSIUS
was still there, each letter standing alone in a deeply incised square. Tyr's lesson of respect had been transformed into a talisman of hate.

The obverse bore an image of Morlock's mother. It remained untouched. Was that a sign of reverence? Indifference? Tyr could not be sure.

In fact, the matter was beyond Tyr's reach and he knew it. In New Moorhope, the greatest center of lore and learning in the Wardlands (perhaps the world, or many a world), there were mindhealers as well as geometers. Should he send Morlock to them, as well?

But the boy never
spoke
of it. Whenever he spoke of his
ruthen
father nowadays, it was with measured respect for old Ambrosius' achievements, never a word of disrespect. And he rarely spoke of the old man at all. Whatever Morlock felt, he knew it was wrong, and he kept it locked up inside himself. That was good, wasn't it? It showed he was learning.

Tyr walked away and went about his work as Eldest of the Seven Clans. He had many things to think about, but Morlock was often on his mind, if never quite in his grasp.

PART TWO

U
NDER
THE
G
UARD

Does the eagle know what is in the pit?

Or wilt thou go ask the mole?

Can wisdom be put in a silver rod?

Or love in a golden bowl?

—Blake,
The Book of Thel

C
HAPTER
S
IX

Earno Goes North

Y
ears later, in the hour before dawn, Earno Dragonkiller lay dreaming.

From his bed he seemed to see red light on the clouds outside his window. He heard the roar of a high wind and the unmistakable crackling of an open fire. He rose from his bed in the dark red light and went to the window. He saw, without surprise, that the city, A Thousand Towers, was burning. The river Ruleijn ran red as blood with reflected light. Turning away from the window, he noticed that beside his bed stood a spiraling stairway, where none had been before. He ascended it without hesitation, and it led him to the roof of his house.

Casting his gaze about as he reached the roof, he saw instantly that the fire had gutted Tower Ambrose, ancient home of the Ambrosii. He watched with some satisfaction as it collapsed into a smoky glowing ruin. But as it fell the horizon itself gave way and he surveyed all the Wardlands at a glance.

And it was all burning; fire devoured not just A Thousand Towers but the whole realm. An arc of fire swung through the Easthold down to the islands of the south; looking west, he seemed to be able to see over the Hrithaens, the tallest mountains in the world, and he found that the narrow plains of the Westhold also blazed, bright with death. At last he looked north, where he saw the Whitethorn Mountains, belying their name, black as cinders surrounding the red coals that had been the Northhold. Seeing that the flames had died down in the north, he realized that the fire must have started there. For the first time, fear struck through his dreaming calm. For the first time, it seemed more than a dream.

“Lernaion!” He awakened to the harsh croak of his own voice in the midnight darkness of his room. Sleep did not return to him that night.

The summoner Earno went to Illion's house the next morning before dawn. Illion, already known as Illion the Wise, was a vocate, the second rank of Guardian. Most of his peers belonged to one of the three factions that followed each of the Three Summoners. There were some free voices heard at Station, though, who spoke their own words and adhered to no faction; notorious among these was Illion. For that reason he was no obvious ally to Earno. But when the summoner looked for advice, he not infrequently went to his neighbor and opponent Illion.

The vocate, who was having breakfast, invited his senior in, but Earno sat sullenly at the table without eating anything; he spoke hardly more than he ate. Illion, seeing his mood, waited until he was ready to speak his mind.

“Vocate Illion,” Earno said finally, “I must leave this morning.”

“I'm sorry,” Illion said. “I'd hoped we could work together on the Kaenish matter. If the Two Powers are reaching westward—”

“Yes, well, that's dead and buried now.”

“I'm afraid it's not, though. I'd hoped we could discuss it with those who sometimes speak along with me at Station.”

“This Station is over, as far as I'm concerned.”

“I don't see why. There's much that can be done; there's much that needs doing.”

“You misunderstand me. I must leave A Thousand Towers. I must . . .” Earno seemed to hear the almost hysterical compulsion in his own voice and concluded curtly, “I am going north.”

“Oh.” Illion thought about this for a while. The summoner Lernaion had gone north early in the year, to set the protective wards about the Northhold. That had been in late winter, on the twenty-second of Jaric. It was now the twenty-sixth of the Mother and the Maiden, well into fall. Perhaps two hundred and eighty days had passed, with not even a message from the north. People were beginning to talk. “You are concerned for Lernaion?” he said finally.

“Yes.” Earno met his eye with a glare.

Illion recognized Earno's defensiveness on the subject of Lernaion, whose faction he had followed when he was a vocate. But, for himself, he respected Earno's insight and was troubled.

They rose from the table and walked out of the wide open doors of Illion's house. The sun had just risen, red on the western horizon. Earno silently saluted Tower Ambrose, unruined, brooding over the river Ruleijn. They turned their back on it and walked down toward the old city walls where the Station Chamber stood.

“After the Station ends,” Illion said, “I will be going up to Three Hills. There will be some other vocates with me.”

Three Hills was in Westhold, just south of Northhold's border. “For how long?” Earno asked.

“Three or four of us will always be there, until I hear from you.”

Earno nodded. They walked the rest of the way in silence.