The Wolf Age (61 page)

The watcher stood slowly. "I think he was trying to get me to fight, Chieftain."

"You were too smart for that, I hope."

"Me, fight Khretvarrgliu?" The watcher seemed genuinely appalled. "Never."

"That's right," the grizzled citizen said agreeably.

The watcher wandered off, and the werewolf with the tort said to Morlock, "But we've already had our fight, haven't we, me and you? We've fought, and I've won."

"Your name is Wurnafenglu," Morlock said.

"It is," the werewolf said, quite pleased. "You were not in a condition to converse when last we saw each other. I'm glad things have changed."

"We have not fought. You are wise to keep this door between us. I'll kill you if I get the chance."

"But I won't give you the chance!" Wurnafenglu said triumphantly. "No, indeed. That's why I win, Khretvarrgliu. I'll keep you on the other side of this door as long as it suits me."

"That's what you thought before."

"I'll keep you on the other side of this door as long as it suits me," Wurnafenglu repeated, raising his voice. "On a day soon to come, I will have you chained and dragged forth. I will take you to the highest mesa of the city, and I will execute you there between the Stone Tree and the Well of Shadows, as the climax of our final rally against those mongrels who now call themselves the Union."

"Why wait?"

"A good rally takes preparation. Plus, our astronomers say there will be an eclipse of the sun on that day. That will impress the rabble."

"Your fellow citizens, you mean to say?"

"That's what I did say. The important people are already with us."

Wurnafenglu spent some time talking about his plan of independent strength through partial unity. Morlock didn't listen, but spent the time thinking about things he had seen and people he had known.

Presently he saw a decapitated man holding his severed head like a lamp. The man was standing next to Wurnafenglu, as he had stood beside him so many times in the Vargulleion. Wurnafenglu had never seen him then and didn't see him now. But Morlock did. He wondered if his madness was returning-if, perhaps, the ghost sickness was driving him insane.

"No," said the severed head in Wardspeech, one of the languages Morlock had grown up speaking. "I felt an impulse to manifest to you. I am War. "

Morlock mulled this over for a bit, and said in the same language, "You are one of the Strange Gods?"

"I am."

Wurnafenglu asked him what the ghost he was babbling about, but Morlock had no trouble ignoring him. "Do you know Death?" he asked.

"She is one of our company. I don't count her as a friend, but we often work together, of course."

"Why have you chosen to show yourself to me?"

War dismissed the question with a wave of his free hand. "I do what I choose, and I don't explain myself even to myself. I should thank you, though. This has been the most entertaining Year of Choosing that I remember."

"I have nothing to do with that."

"Never lie to a god. What's the point? I was manifest when you and your friends escaped the Vargulleion. I was manifest when you fought the Sardhluun on the ground and the Neyuwuleiuun in the sky. I watched the battles your friend has been fighting."

"They call them rallies, I think."

"Never bandy words with a god. He may take offense."

Morlock shrugged and opened his right hand.

"You are indifferent, I see. But in a way, we are old friends. And I often visited you in the Vargulleion."

Morlock nodded. "Do you know Death?" he asked.

"No one really knows her; she is the strangest of the Strange Gods."

"I think I met her, once."

"`Met' is improper usage. She may have allowed you to perceive her manifestation. Yes, I visualize that. I don't understand it, though. Perhaps you can ask her about it when you see her."

"You visualize my imminent death?"

"Not visualize, no. All things are in flux, and visualizations of the future are near valueless. Still, if I were a gambling god, I would not bet on your living to the next moonset."

Morlock turned his face away and sensed without seeing War demanifest himself. When he looked back at the corridor, both War and Wurnafenglu were gone and the semiwolf watcher had returned and was staring at him, the long doglike jaw somewhat askew.

Morlock wondered why he was so impressed. Clearly he had heard stories of Khretvarrgliu. But it was not impossible he somehow felt without understanding the manifestation of the Strange God. He had few honorteeth: one of those Wurnafenglu called the rabble.

"I am not angry at you," he said to the guard in Sunspeech. "I am rarely angry. But when I am angry, I will blot out the sun. Do you understand me? I will blot out the sun."

The watcher gaped at him, but did not respond. Morlock decided he would try again with the next shift.

Days passed. Eventually the day for his execution came. The corridor filled with watchers, most of whom stared at him in open terror: he had spent each shift working on their minds. His heart fell, though, when two watchers actually entered the cell. They weren't jailhouse guards. In fact, they were the pair he had met before, patrolling the Shadow Market and again on the stairs of the funicular tower: white-haired Okhurokratu and his scar-faced partner-Snellingu, Morlock remembered. Okhurokratu had chains in his hand; Snellingu a drawn sword.

"Be coming along, Khretvarrgliu," said Snellingu.

Morlock rose to his feet, prepared to fight if there was a chance.

But there was no chance. Other guards with clubs entered, and they struck Morlock about the head and shoulders until he lost consciousness.

When he awoke, he was being carried up the long stairs of the funicular tower by the white-haired werewolf and the scar-faced one.

"Are you being awake?" grunted Snellingu. "Why don't you get walking, then?"

"Eh," said Morlock. "Why not?"

He thought there might be more chance for escape while on his own feet, although it turned out he was wrong about that. His right hand was chained to his leg; his legs were chained to each other: there was barely enough slack for him to climb a step at a time. His left hand was free, of course, but there was little it could do. His cloak had been taken, and his ghostly arm was bare to the shoulder, looking strangely insubstantial in the fierce morning sun. They were already halfway up the long tower stairway: there was no chance of his getting away-unless he took the quick route, over the rail. He thought about it coldly, then decided against it. He wasn't the resigned type. He would put them to the trouble of killing him, if there was no other way he could inconvenience them.

He turned his eyes back up the stairwell and met the gaze of the whitehaired guard who was leading the way upward. "That's right!" Okhurokratu said, in a relieved tone. "No point getting us into trouble."

"Don't be trying to be talking him into it," called Snellingu from below.

Morlock said nothing. He thought he heard someone saying, Kree-laow.! Kree-laou ' He looked into an unglazed window as they passed it on the stairwell but could see nothing within: the light difference was like a black curtain.

As they climbed, Morlock kept his eyes on the funicular ways. He would have liked to see the gears within the tower, but he thought he understood how the ropeways worked. There was one upward way and one downward way that were in constant motion. At regular intervals, crews atop the towers attached the rope-woven cars to the upward way and detached them from the downward way.

They finally reached the top. Morlock looked with interest at the crews hitching and unhitching the basketlike cars. When a car came down the way, the crew fixed it to the tower with an anchor like a great hook. The passengers got out and trudged away via the down staircase on the far side of the tower. Then the crew unhooked the car from the ropes and carried it over to the near side of the tower. They anchored it, hooked it to the upward rope, but did not fasten the hitch, so that the funicular ropes ran through the hooks without carrying the car away. They motioned the waiting passengers to embark. The waiting passengers were Morlock and his two guards: the way had apparently been cleared before them.

The crews were looking very unhappy in the fierce light and humid air, but they didn't appear to be slaves.

The guards sat down at some distance from him: white-haired Okhurokratu at the left-hand window, opposite to Morlock, scar-faced Snellingu with his back against the wicker-screened window in the front of the car. They had probably been warned against coming within reach of his ghostly hand. This was wise, as Morlock would certainly use it against them if he could. It had occurred to him that if he could distract one of them with it long enough to get a spear, he might kill them both, in which case matters would be very different indeed. He could not hope for real escape, but he did plan on causing harm to those who would kill him.

Morlock covertly tested the wicker screen on his right by pressing his elbow against it. It didn't give much. Probably it would be difficult to kick one of the guards out without being speared by the other. If he was going to try anything on the funicular, it would be best if he freed his hand first. He thought about the difficult task of teasing forth the wire from the seam while the guards were watching him, and wondered if he could get them to distract each other.

The crew cast off the anchor of the car and simultaneously did something to the hitches, fixing them to the cable leading upward. The car jerked into motion and carried them out over the city.

Morlock asked the watchers, "Are they all free citizens on the roof crews?"

"Yes," Okhurokratu said. "They tried slaves a few times, but it never worked. Not lively enough when it counts. It used to be free workers on every spoke down to the ground, and things worked better then."

Snellingu made a rude whistling sound with his wounded lips.

"My old gray-muzzle used to work the gears," Okhurokratu said. "Since they went to using slaves, he hasn't had an honest day's work and I've got to support him. A free citizen, supporting his gray-muzzled dad and half his brothers. Can you feature that?"

"The funiculars are working the same way they have been always doing, and you are just being angry about your sloppy-lazy family, which is boring to me."

"Ah. You don't know what it's like."

"I am knowing; you are all the time telling me. I am not caring."

"Ah. You-"

"So, Khretvarrgliu," said Snellingu. "You are being impressed by our funicular ways? Is it not being impressive? Don't be listening to my partner; he cannot be being happy unless he is being unhappy."

This turned the conversation back to Morlock, which was awkward, as he had the tip of the wire between his thumb and index finger. "Could be improved," he said. "It's a long walk up."

Both the watchers laughed. "Of course it's a long walk," Okhurokratu said. "What would you do about that? The funicular has to be high so it can clear the mesas."

"The same sort of gears that power the funicular could work ropes running up and down the tower. Put platforms on the ropes; people can ride up." He was hindered by the lack of a technical vocabulary in Sunspeech-and, anyway, he really only wanted to distract them.

The watchers fell silent, distracted by the image in their minds of elevators rising and falling. "Too much work for the tower-slaves," Okhurokratu said eventually. "They're only flesh and blood."

"Get other crews. The gears could be worked from the ground, or from the top of the tower. Adding another level there might be the best thing."

The two watchers looked at each other. Morlock deftly palmed the wire now freed from the seam.

"They would never be going for it," said scar-face doubtfully. "The big-teeth."

Morlock shrugged. He looked at a hand crank on the ceiling of the car. Nodding toward it, he said, "That's for-" He paused. He didn't know the Sunspeech word for emergency, though he had been in many and caused more than a few. "If the ropes stop," he concluded finally.

"Yes," grumbled Okhurokratu. "Happened to me, once-on the up way, which is the worst. Had to crank for half the afternoon just to get to the next tower. That never happened when they used free workers."

Snellingu rolled his eyes. "How would you be knowing? You have been saying you were only a pup when they were had starting to use slaves."

"My gray-muzzle told me."

Both watchers turned their gaze directly at Morlock, now-not especially interested in him, but efficiently minding him. There was nothing he could do while they were watching him, so he looked out the window.

They were riding high above the city. Morlock felt strangely inspired, almost the way he had felt when he was flying. The city had a kind of beauty, seen from here: it was full of trees, bristling with lair-towers. There were running streams, silvery in the bitter sunlight, and open pools that glared back at him. He saw the citizens going about their business in their day shapes in the cruel summery light. None of them looked up to see him pass on toward his death. They would go on doing the same thing tomorrow when he was dead. In that moment, they almost mattered more to him than he did to himself, even though they looked smaller than ... than those ratlike things with the human faces.