The Wolf Age (12 page)

here came a night without a moon, an eyeless night, in the wolvish phrase. It must have been early in the month of Drums. Rokhlenu did not transform into a wolf but stayed in human form, shivering in the dark cell with Morlock.

"How do you stand it without fur?" Rokhlenu asked him finally.

"I don't sleep much," Morlock admitted. "A few hours a night. There's no point in it anyway."

"Isn't there? I like to sleep when I can. Dreams might be the only way I ever get out of this place."

"I don't dream."

"Everybody dreams, Morlock. Are you sure what the word means?"

"I don't dream since they put the spike in my head."

"What?" Rokhlenu asked.

So, with a little prompting and vocabulary assistance from Rokhlenu, Morlock told the tale of how he had been captured. He didn't mention why he had been using his Sight: that wasn't something he wanted the guards to hear, if they were listening, and ever since Hrutnefdhu's humiliation he tried to stay aware that they were always listening. But he said that he had used his Sight and narrated what happened after, as far as he could remember it.

"A ghost-sniffer," Rokhlenu said, when Morlock described the wolf who had detected his Sight. "They travel with the raiders, in case they run afoul of any magic-users, like you used to be, I guess. I understand they get their powers from sleeping with pigs during the dark of the moons. Of course, all the Sardhluun try that sometimes."

This was mere slander, for the ears of the ever-listening guards, who twitched angrily but did not intervene.

"How did you end up so deep in the north, though?" Rokhlenu asked. "And what happened to those people who were travelling with you? I remember that young man. Thund?"

"Thend."

"Thend. Not the dullest tool in the drawer, but he had more nerve than brains at that. I remember how he crept down into the Vale of the Mother, leaving a trail as dark as ink through the tall grass! But his family was down there, and he wasn't going to let fear or common sense stop him from getting killed with them. It's a miracle he wasn't."

"You played a part in that miracle."

"A small matter. It added nothing to my bite when I told the story back home, believe me. Anyway, how are they?"

"Well, or so I hope. I left them so they'd have a better chance at that."

"Oh? Anything I should know about?"

Morlock glumly pondered how much he could or should tell Rokhlenu about Merlin. "I have a powerful enemy. When he attacks me ... those around me may be harmed."

"Yurr. Well, we'll meet him together, if it comes to that. But you haven't asked me what I'm doing here."

"Bad manners."

"In a prison? I guess you're right. I've never been in one before. Have you?"

"A few times. Nothing like this." Morlock tapped the side of his head and shrugged.

"Well, since you can't ask, I'll just tell you. I was born, poor but honest-"

"Poor in imagination, anyway."

"To the Stone Tree with you, you ill-tempered, ape-footed son of a walrus-fondling pimp."

"That's a little better," Morlock conceded.

"I was horn, anyway: you won't quibble with me about that?"

Morlock almost did, just for something to do, but there was a limit anyone could stand to this abrasive humor, and they had no escape from each other's company. So he shrugged and opened one hand.

"Three shadows by sunlight," Rokhlenu swore. "Do you talk any more when you know the language better?"

The joke was already overfamiliar. "No," Morlock said curtly. "You were born?"

"Yes, although they didn't throw me in prison right away because of that. Actually, I was lying like a were-weasel earlier: my family had a lot of bite when I was growing up in the Aruukaiaduun pack-"

"What's `bite'?" Morlock asked.

"You can't be serious. Don't you know what bite is?"

"I thought I did," Morlock said. He pointed at a ragged scar on his arm. "That's from a bite. Or am I using the wrong word?"

"No," Rokhlenu said, "but it means more than just one thing. Bite is ... You know, they gave you that honor-tooth after you ripped old Khretnurrliu's head off."

"Khretnurrliu." The name meant man-killer if Morlock understood it right. "That was his name?"

"Yes, but so what? It's not like you'll be seeing him again."

Morlock didn't tell him how wrong he was but said, "I remember the tooth. And the guards wear teeth. They show ..." He wanted to say status, but he didn't know the word for it.

"They show bite: the more teeth the greater the individual's bite. The more bite you have, the more important you are. That's why Hrutnefdhu keeps trying to give the tooth back to you."

Hrutnefdhu, the pale trustee, had brought the tooth back to Morlock several times. But Morlock would not accept status from the beasts who had stolen his freedom, a point he did not have the abstract vocabulary to make to Hrutnefdhu, so he just kept refusing it.

"It is theirs," Morlock said now to Rokhlenu. "If it is theirs, it is not mine."

"Most people would have taken the tooth. If you acquired enough bite, they might let you out of here."

"Just let me go?"

"No. They'd probably send you to work in the fields. The Sardhluun have many fields and pastures, most of them slave-worked." Rokhlenu seemed about to go on, but he didn't.

Morlock could guess what he had been going to say. It would be easier to escape from there than from here. No doubt that was true. Morlock doubted he could bend himself to the performance, though. And it was clear that the only way he could earn a second tooth, more "bite" in the eyes of his captors, would be to kill Rokhlenu. Even if he could do that, he would not.

"Eh," Morlock said.

"Right," Rokhlenu agreed. "So, anyway, my people had bite. My father was a master rope maker on the funicular in Wuruyaaria-"

"Wuruyaaria is the city of werewolves?"

"Yes. For someone who doesn't talk much, you're interrupting me a lot."

"What's a funicular?"

"It's just a bunch of big ropes, really. One end is at the city walls (by Twinegate, naturally) and the other is on the city's highest mesa, Wuruklendon. Baskets can ride the ropes up and down."

"Baskets?"

"Yes." Rokhlenu explained what a basket was. "Of course, it's really the people and things in the baskets that are important."

"Of course," Morlock agreed, but he didn't mean it. It was the rope system itself that impressed him. "An impressive feat of making."

"The funicular? I guess so. People say Ulugarriu made it, like the moonclock in the volcano's side and everything else that impresses people."

"Ulugarriu." The name meant Ghosts-in-the-eyes, unless Morlock misunderstood it. "I would like to meet him." (The name's -u ending meant that it was masculine gender.) "He must be a great maker."

"Eh. Oh, maggots, now you've got me doing it. Forget about meeting Ulugarriu, Morlock. He walks unseen. Nobody ever meets him."

"Then how do you know he exists?"

"I never said he did. Anyway, I exist and I was born, not-so-poor-and slightly-dishonest in the shadow of the great Fang Tower of Nekkuk- lendon-which, before you ask, is the third of the great mesas of Wuruyaaria. Shall I tell you about my childhood, my youth, my musical education, my many battles, my steady-yet-rapid accumulation of bite, my first sexual adventures?"

"God Avenger, no.,,

"Well, it's your loss, but I'll skip on a bit, then. My problem was that, like most young werewolves of spirit, I wanted political office."

"Eh."

"I did say werewolves. I don't pretend to know what life is like for you people, but we are pack animals. We're not ashamed of it."

"It's not much different for us, I guess. Except for the shame, maybe. Go on."

"My father ranked high in the Aruukaiaduun pack, but I wanted to rank still higher. I could have, too: I was favored to win nomination to the Innermost Pack."

"How many packs are there?"

"Four, of course-and the outliers, who don't count yet. Each pack has an Inner Pack, who have the most bite in the pack, and millennia ago, when the city was founded, they set up an Innermost Pack with members drawn from all three of the treaty packs."

"Three? You said there were four."

"There were three, then. The Sardhluun weren't part of the treaty until later. They bought their way in, essentially. They had slaves, and prison houses, and meat, and as these are three things that no civilized society can do without-"

"Eh."

11 -that our society can't do without, the Sardhluun were given places on the Innermost Pack and accepted into the treaty. What would you have done?"

Morlock gave it some thought and said, "I would gut every member of the Sardhluun Pack with a silver knife."

This caused a rustle among the ever-watchful guards. Even Rokhlenu jumped a little, but then he said, "Right! And I'll hold them down for you. Anyway. The different packs can nominate members to the innermost Pack, but the nominees have to earn their place in competition with each other."

"How does it work?"

"Fight and bite. Bite and fight. You can get bite by fighting, or talking, or singing, or making, or doing. You can buy it: people who make money always have lots of bite. I got a lot of bite from a song I composed."

"Oh? What's it about?"

"The way a she-wolf's genitals smelled when Chariot was aloft in midwinter."

"That's impossible, though," Morlock pointed out, after some vocabulary was explained to him. "Chariot doesn't rise until the first day of spring."

"You have to make things up for a good song sometimes, Morlock."

Morlock shrugged dubiously at the necessity of fantasy and said, "So your political career led to the prison house."

"As it often does-maybe not often enough. I was popular; my family was rich; I was a well-respected singer; people knew I could fight. They knew it so much that I never had to."

"Wasn't that good?"

"Yes and no. I'd have liked to get in a few more fights to raise my reputation. But if you run around starting fights with people, it can actually decrease your bite."

Morlock nodded. "So: the dragon."

"Exactly. I took many a long run down south to the mountains, hoping to get into trouble I'd have to fight my way out of. Not too many werewolves actually go into the Kirach Kund, though. I had to wait a long time before I found a dragon that was vulnerable, but it was worth it."

"Go on." Morlock had a professional interest in the killing of dragons.

"I came upon one that had been drugged by the Spiderfolk. They had just taken its dragonrider prisoner and they were hauling him away. They could not approach the dragon-they're very susceptible to fire. You remember."

"Yes."

"So I waited till they were gone and I sneaked up on the dragon and killed it. And-"

"How?"

"I crept into its mouth and gnawed through the palate into its brain."

"Oh."

"I can't say that I enjoyed the dragon brain much. But the palate, and dragon meat generally, is very pleasant: a firm white meat, somewhat like rattlesnake or chicken. Have you ever-?"

"No. Not dragon, at any rate."

"Well, everyone has to draw the line somewhere. I've never eaten another werewolf, no matter how hungry I've been. Not knowingly, anyway. So, after I left you in the Vale of the Mother, I went back and stripped the dragon's skull and brought it back to my father's house for a prize."

"It must have earned you a lot of bite."

"It did! It did! My father hired the best ghost-sniffers from the Goweiteiuun Pack to confirm my story in an affidavit, and the pack voted me a new name. They liked the story of how we were taken by the Khroi and the odd Dwarvish word the Khroi used for dragonkiller, so they voted me that for my new name."

"Oh? What was your name before?"

"Slenkjariu," Rokhlenu said reluctantly. "After my mother's grandfather. None of my mother's people amounted to much, and with names like that you can see why."

Morlock didn't exactly see why, but his friend actually seemed embarrassed and he didn't want to make it any worse. "I still sense a long road from there to here."

"A short one. There was, and is, a gray-muzzle in the Aruukaiaduun Inner Pack, name of Rywudhaariu; he had a list of nominees for the next citywide election, and I wasn't on it and he didn't want me on it. So he had a few of his boys rob and murder a bookie and then frame me for it."

Morlock needed some words explained ("bookie" and "frame" particularly). Then he remarked, "Was there a trial? Didn't your heroic bite help you there?"

"Not against Rywudhaariu, who'd been collecting teeth up and down the mesa for more than forty years. Anyway, he bribed the jury-used the proceeds of the robbery to fund the bribes. You have to admit that shows vifna."

"Do I?" Morlock didn't know what vifna was, but he didn't think he liked it. "Wasn't this all illegal? I don't understand your system."

"It was illegal, and everyone knew about it, and if things made sense maybe it wouldn't have worked. But Rywudhaariu was probably better off after my trial than before it. Somehow, if it's your job to make or enforce the laws and you break them with impunity, you can get a certain kind of bite from that. I don't understand it myself well enough to explain it, but that's how it seems to work. Maybe it's different in never-wolf cities."