A Guile of Dragons (28 page)

“Vendas,” Earno said with an odd intonation in his voice, “was one of those left spellbound after the first attack on Thrymhaiam. Some days later, when Vendas failed to improve, Deor (for reasons he does not explain) attempted a very dangerous experiment, forcing Vendas to drink . . . an infusion of certain herbs. The spell was ultimately loosed, but its aftereffects appear to be permanent.”

“I don't understand.”

“I'll explain. The dragon who bound Vendas filled his mind with . . . preachings about the Two Powers, as you call them. He was commanded to be a missionary for them in the Wardlands, and promised great rewards if he was successful. He can think of nothing but obeying those commands.”

“Then the spell is not loosed.”

“You are unsubtle. There is no spell. But he remembers the vision of the power and the rewards that were to be his. That vision obsesses him. He will do anything to obtain those rewards, not because the spell lingers, but because the spell-that-was fit too thoroughly well into a flaw in his character. The pressure on that flaw has broken his mind, and his will is no longer his own.”

Morlock pondered this in silence.

“So you see,” Earno continued, finally, “there is no reason, no matter what your . . . kinsmen may believe, to suppose that the Two Powers, as you call them, have any real existence. The dragons have simply attempted to use that religion—which is common in areas south of the Blackthorns—for purposes of their own.”

He went on for some time in this way. Morlock ceased listening almost immediately. To his mind, the story of Vendas confirmed his “memories” linking the dragons with the Two Powers. But he saw that Earno would resist the idea, if he mentioned that odd visionary experience in Haukrull. Still . . . perhaps he ought to try. . . .

Morlock abruptly became conscious of a silence that already seemed to have lasted a long time. He looked up and saw the summoner again staring out the window. This was the bitterest of insults to a dwarf, worse even than staring over one's head while talking. Perhaps Earno was unaware of this, or perhaps he was offended by Morlock's inattention. Now it seemed as if Morlock must explain his “memories” of the Two Powers, to explain his preoccupation.

Something held him back, though. It was something like resentment, or perhaps merely disappointment. This was not how he had imagined his conference with Earno would go. He had hoped he would be able to tell Earno everything that had happened. Then Earno would explain to him whatever was confusing: the strange corpse in Saijok Mahr's pool, the repulsive and frightening notion that dragons and dwarves were somehow akin, the ineffectiveness of dragonspell upon him. Perhaps, he had thought, Earno would even explain those nightmarish memories of . . . of
being
Merlin. Morlock had never once doubted that Earno could do all this. Earno was wise; what he did not know he could find ways to understand.

But things were going wrong. Earno would not even listen to what he knew for certain, much less explain to him what remained mysterious. Earno, indeed, was rich in explanations, but they meant nothing; they were intended to cover up facts, not account for them.

Morlock acknowledged his resentment, but strove to keep it in check. He had spoken badly, perhaps. Earno came from a different folk. The fault might be his own. There might be no fault. In any case, he would correct the situation now. He would make Earno (Earno that fool he had tried to warn him)—he would
make
him understand.

Speaking carefully, slowly and in detail he explained. He had much to say, but he began with the matter of Vendas. He told Earno everything that had passed between him and his
harven
kin at the High Gates before Earno's arrival. He demonstrated, with mechanical precision, that Deor could have told him nothing about the Two Powers, or else that he himself was an irrecoverable liar.

Earno seemed to believe him, becoming more receptive as he spoke. But Morlock did not relax.

He found his apprehension justified. When he concluded Earno remarked, “This confirms my impression. You must have been under a dragonspell—”

Morlock reflected gloomily that this was one more thing he could not tell the summoner. If he claimed at this point to be immune to dragonspell . . . well, he simply would not be believed. He reflected that if Earno was intent on disbelieving everything he said, there had been little point in sending him to Haukrull. Almost absentmindedly he remarked, “I am not under a dragonspell. You may test this, if you like.”

“Nevertheless, you may have been—”

“If I had been and it had passed I would remember the placing of the spell.” He was baiting the summoner, in a way—daring him to say the word
liar.

Earno sensed the defiance without understanding it and let some of his own long-held anger loose. “I think I have more experience in these matters than you—”

“Summoner, it was I who stood before Saijok Mahr and Vild Kharum. That is my experience. It was what you sent me to do.”

“Then make your report!” the summoner commanded.

It was the last chance, Morlock knew. If Earno learned, in this temper, that he had deliberately not delivered the challenge . . . it would mean he would no longer be heard. If only the summoner were not so suspicious, so reluctant to approach the truths Morlock had to tell him.

Again he began slowly, describing in detail the entrance to Saijok Mahr's den. Too much detail, it seemed; before long Earno broke in impatiently. “Get to the point!”

It was no use, Morlock decided. He told the rest of his story in five flat sentences. After concluding his narrative he added, “Trua and her people will need assistance before winter sets in, or they will die. If you permit, I will tell the Eldest of them.”

Earno heard him through with obviously increasing anger. The summoner kept his face averted (scornfully, so Morlock thought), so he could be seen only in profile. “That confirms it, then,” he said, when Morlock was finished speaking. “You willfully disobeyed my command. You must have been under control.”

“I was not!” Morlock shouted, losing his temper at last. 

“Don't be too eager to deny it, Thain. It may be all that stands between you and exile.”

Morlock leapt to his feet, biting back an inarticulate cry of anger. “More than that . . .” he said, choking with anger, “there is more than that between me and exile. I had no absolute command to deliver a challenge. You said it yourself, you said . . . if we knew there was a guile in Haukrull there'd be no need . . . to send me there. I was sent, first, to . . . to find out. To learn—”

“You found a guile. You spoke to the master. The challenge should have been given.”

“There is a guile and there is not,” Morlock replied. “Why will you not understand? This is not a guile as you know them. It does not live and die by the fear of a single leader. Your challenge is a futile gambit—”

“There is enough despair being preached beneath these mountains—”

“I do not despair. There is a way. If you will listen—”

“I have been listening. That is your problem, Thain—not that I have not heard you, but that I have heard you all too well.”

Morlock shook his head and tried to begin again. “Listen—that is . . . Listen, Summoner. Suppose what you say is true. What harm has it done—” He broke off, enraged at the weakness of his appeal, the pleading in his voice. Why should he have to persuade his senior to hear the facts he had been commanded to learn?

“What harm?” said the summoner incredulously. “Instead of awaiting my advent the master may have taken the guile hunting through the Wardlands!”

Morlock found this too senseless to even be infuriating. Clearly the dragons aimed to reduce the north to captivity first. If they had intended to attack the rest of the Wardlands they'd had the months of summer and fall to do it in. “Well. Has he?” Morlock demanded dryly.

“Who are you to make demands of me,” Earno shouted, “as if I were the thain and you were the summoner? I no longer require your presence, Thain Morlock, here or anywhere in the north. Tomorrow I will send you south with a letter. In the meantime—get out!”

Morlock turned and left the room without speaking.

That night in dreams, Morlock was Merlin the exile. For a tenth of all they possessed the citizens of Aflraun had purchased his services. For that price, paid in advance, Ambrosius swore to defend them against Earno Summoner, the dragon who threatened their homes with his guile.

The accursed sword Gryregaest glittered darkly in Ambrosius' hand as the dragon swept in from the west and south. The towers of Aflraun were lit up by the dragon's blood-bright spell-haunted eyes, like the peaks of Thrymhaiam in evening light.

Traitor! Liar! Exile!
the dragon snarled.
I know you, Ambrosius, and your kind.

Ambrosius raised the sword Gryregaest in reply; the blue light of banefire still surrounded it. The deadly light flared in midair and tightened around Earno Dragon like a net of blazing blue wires. The dragon began to burn with blue light, and continued to burn until there was nothing left of the dragon but a pile of ashes, like a heavy white cloak in the blue light of the banefire. He laughed, with a terrifying sense of vengeance achieved, until something stirred under the white cloak, crying, “Morlock!”

Guilt was the hook dragging him to wakefulness. He
was
Morlock, not Merlin. Vengeance for him was neither attainable nor thinkable. He was sorry, now, that he had killed Earno. Nothing could atone for such a crime. He was sick with shame and guilt, yet his head rang with echoes of imperfectly suppressed anger, like voices calling his name.

“Morlock!”

He would have to go before the Graith and confess. Or perhaps it would be better to flee across the border and hide in the unguarded lands. He might meet his father there. . . .

“Morlock! Hey, Morlock! It's no use, Raev. Go tell the summoner it's as I told him before: he's too sick to travel.”

“Wait,” Morlock said thickly.

“Ach—Canyon take you, Morlock, go back to sleep!”

Morlock opened his eyes. Deortheorn and a younger cousin of his, Raev, were standing next to Morlock's bed.

“What is it?” Morlock asked heavily.

“Earno's sending you south. Here's a letter you're to carry.”

Morlock sat up cautiously. He was in the journey-makers' sleeping hall, which was always dimly lit, as travelling workers are apt to sleep at any hour. Apparently he had not killed Earno, or anyone. Yet. He took the letter from Deor.

“Morlock, you can't go,” Deor said. He didn't have to say why. The dragons would be watching all travel south. Several messages had already been sent to warn the other holds. They had gone by relay parties, some of whom were to return at each stage of the road, so that the group's progress could be gauged. No one had yet returned from any group, and all were being mourned as dead.

Morlock shrugged. “I'll go. I'm a Guardian, Deor.”

Deor looked him in the eye. “I don't much like the Guardians I've met, Morlock. So that says nothing to me.”

Morlock shrugged again. He was in no mood to disagree.

In a matter of moments Morlock was dressed. He bid Deor and Raev good-bye. Then he went to Southgate, or what had been Southgate. It was noon by the time he arrived there. The dwarves on watch greeted him as Rokhlan. They had a horse standing ready for him, the one he had ridden from the Rangan outpost. He viewed it with disfavor and mounted.

As he rode out among the ruins of Southgate he saw that much of the rubble was cleared away, and the stone cut down to bedrock where the southeast edge of the mountain had run. Parties of dwarves worked steadily as he passed, laying the foundation of the new wall. There were no dragons in sight . . . except the slain one, of course. It had been burned on the little hill where it had died, but the bones remained, black and ominous, against the pale clear sky of late fall.