A Guile of Dragons (34 page)

“I do not know you,” said Merlin Ambrosius. “But I knew you would come here.” He smiled. “I take it for granted that you know me.”

There was arrogance in that smile—a measured arrogance. The smile and the statement claimed nothing, after all, but the truth. Morlock had heard of Merlin.

“Sit down, if you wish. Warm yourself at the fire. You'll welcome the memory, soon enough.”

Morlock remained standing. The image of Merlin sat down on the opposite side of the fire and continued to speak.

“You have come here, drawn by stories—I might even say legends. You have come here to better my deed. When I made certain choices I knew you, and others like you, would come; to you, I guess, my work here seems incomplete. So I have remained here, in simulacrum, to assure you that the deed is not incomplete, and to warn you against meddling with my work.”

Merlin smiled engagingly. “Those are harsh words for a proud champion. I don't speak them lightly. They are the best advice I can give to someone I consider my peer.”

“Get on with it!” Morlock muttered, embarrassed and angry.

“I will explain,” the image continued. “We stand (or sit) in part of the tomb of the Great Cor, now known as the Dead Cor. He, like his successors, had a means of prolonging his physical life far beyond its natural term. By feeding on the tal of sacrificial victims he strengthened his own grip on life when it was failing him, preserving life in his body even when that body began to decay.

“In fact, he never died. But the time came when he could no longer act as monarch over the unruly sorcerer-nobles of his kingdom; he required all his power simply to sustain the burden of his own life. Finally he was deposed and his successor did him the honor of burying him alive within this hill, which was then north of the border of the Wardlands. For you must know that the Coranians were descended from exiles, and like all exiles they hungered to return to the Wardlands.”

Morlock nodded reflexively. His mother had been descended from Coranian exiles; it was one of the two reasons he knew more than he wanted about Coranians.

“The practice became a custom,” Merlin's simulacrum continued. “When a Cor grew too feeble to rule he was taken here and a hill raised over him, in imitation of this one, now called the Hill of Storms (although its Dwarvish name is Tunglskin). But none of the Corain were wholly dead. In time, as their numbers grew, the Dead Cor found he could exert control over, and draw power from, the lingering tal of his successors and inferiors.

“That was a grim time. You have heard of it, or you would not be here. The Dead Cor asserted his mastery over the reigning Cor, who (after a few trials of power) proved willing to be led. The dwarves of Thrymhaiam found their land invaded by the Coranians, who looked to it as the staging ground for an invasion of the very Wardlands. The Eldest of Theorn Clan appealed to the Graith of Guardians to make common cause against the Coranian exiles. The Graith paused, deliberated, and chose to do nothing. I did none of these.

“I will not retell my deeds in the north; you have heard of them, or you would not be here. But I will say a thing to you: my choice was single; I could not have done other than I did. It was not in me to counter the massed sorcery of millennia of the Dead Corain. But I could separate them from each other and from their living successors. This I did, by planting a hedge of banefire around every living corpse that ever carried the sword-scepter Gryregaest. As long as they cling to life, the banefires—a spell I wove into the network of power that bound the Corain together and which they cannot cross—will burn about them. Nor can they reach through the fire to work their influence on others, except at a very low level. And they cannot league with each other, as they did before the north came under the Guard. If left to themselves they will lose their strength and collapse in final physical death.

“But others can go to them. That is the real danger. It gives them continuing sources of strength, to refresh their failing tal. It gives them new physical forms, when their own utterly give way to time. It gives them news of the great world beyond their open graves. It gives them a kind of hope. For as long as they persist the likelihood increases that some force will be able to quench the banefires and set them free, for some reason of its own.

“If you are victorious here, this night, your victory will add nothing to the safety of the Wardlands. But your defeat will hasten its destruction. Make the right choice while you still can. Go back; prove yourself in places where you are truly needed. Do not disturb the dead—lest you join them.”

Then Merlin stood and looked Morlock in the eye. In the next instant the fire disappeared and Merlin with it. A wind blew through the cave.

“You're wrong,” Merlin's son said to the darkness still inscribed with his image, flickering and fading as Morlock's eyes grew used to the dark. “A thousand years, and the Dead Cor is as powerful as ever. And there are powers moving in the land you never expected to return. Besides, I need the sword you left behind. And I think I can do what you chose not to do.”

The darkness did not answer; the spell had exhausted itself, until another traveller came.

Night had completely risen outside. Morlock left the cave behind him and went up the dark stone way.

Morlock's footfalls rang out, regular and quick, in the darkness. He had little time before the banefire kindled. In fact, it occurred to him (belatedly) that the whole purpose of the illusory experience in the cave might be to delay adventurers from reaching the top of the stairway before the banefire came into being.

He began to leap up the steps, three at a time. The dark silhouette of the hilltop sank down toward him. Coming to the end of the stairway he continued to run across the broken ground below the crown of the hill. When the ground changed abruptly under him he fell to his hands and knees in a cloud of dust.

Choking, he felt the gritty sharpness of the dust in his nose and mouth. This, he realized, must be the zone of banefire; a millennium of it had powdered the stone and the soil that had once been there. He wondered what fed the fire, what would quench it. He wondered what the fire would do to him if he lingered here until it kindled. Would his immunity from fire protect him? He doubted it.

He leapt up and began to slog through the heavy drifts of dust. He saw the angular outline of the Broken Altar against the blue-black sky. He saw nothing else. He felt cold. Sweat poured off his face, the dust that rose about him in clouds caked in it, but he was cold. He was cold
inside
, agonizingly so, and the cold was growing.

Blue light bloomed in the dead clouds of dust; it was all about him. He was hurling himself into a hedge of blue flames; they raked the bare flesh of his hands and face like thorns. He unslung the shield of Ambrosius and held it before his face as he ran. He burst through the last wall of flame and fell to his knees on the stony ground within the circle of fire.

Pain sank long cold teeth into his face and hands. He could hardly relax his fingers to let the Ambrosian shield fall to the ground. In the light of the major moons he saw ragged lines of black blisters rising on his hands. Elsewhere he was numb, colder than he had been the night he had escaped the dragons in the maijarra wood. The blisters were the coldest of all, like tumors of ice under the skin. He put his hands under his arms to warm them and bit back cries of pain.

When he felt his fingers might be able to move again, he got to his feet, clenching and unclenching his hands. He recovered his shield and, stumbling occasionally on loose stones, went to meet his adversary.

There were no legends to guide him now, no useful ones. No one had ever come this far up the Hill and returned—except Merlin. There was no one to tell him why the Hill was so dark, even though the summit was ringed with fire. Looking about, he saw that the banefire cast no shadows. Its magical light revealed nothing but itself. The only real light on the hilltop was that of the three moons: somber Chariot, hovering over the crooked eastern horizon; Horseman, more vivid and higher in the eastern sky; and Trumpeter, bitterly bright, just now clearing the western horizon.

“
Khai, gradara!
” Morlock cried, greeting the new moon. Some legends associated the three moons with the Creator, the Sustainer, and the King. Others linked them with the three ranks of Guardian, Trumpeter being associated with the thains. It was as Kingstone and Sign of Thains that Morlock greeted the last moon of the year, rising among the fiercely radiant western stars.

Lowering his eyes to the dark earth, he saw the glitter of reflected banefire. Advancing toward the Broken Altar, he saw the sword Gryregaest lying atop its slanted surface. In all that prospect, the deadly fire revealed only the cursed sword. He would have gone toward it, but he saw something beyond the Broken Altar.

The horizon had changed. Instead of standing against blank sky, the altar was framed by higher ground. Banefire outlined the new horizon without illuminating it.

The top of the Hill had opened. Between the risen slopes of stone and earth, a manlike form moved slowly toward him.

“Come no closer,” he said. “Speak! Speak, if you can.”

The figure continued to approach, but only for a few steps. It wore a heavy robe of grayish cloth, interwoven with bright metallic threads. Much of the fabric had fallen away, though. Over its head was a deep hood. It wore no crown. But in its left, sleeve-muffled hand it carried half a broken scepter.

“Speak!” Morlock said again.

It raised its right hand to its hood and drew it back, just far enough that Morlock could see its chin and throat. There was a swathe of destruction across the throat, as if a fire had burned fiercely there. The chin, too, had a black burn-scar on its dead white flesh; at one point brown bone gleamed darkly in the dim moonlight. Plainly the Dead Cor could not speak. Why had he thought it could? Morlock wondered suddenly. Why had he asked it to speak, when it was he who had something to say?

Then Morlock felt the rapport, a cruel rapport, as the Dead Cor tried to seize control of him. Morlock's will flared up at the attempt. He cried aloud and raised both his fists, as if he could use them to beat back the intrusion.

The Dead Cor actually did take a step back at that moment. It did not move, otherwise, but Morlock nevertheless sensed a kind of acknowledgement from his antagonist. Raising the Ambrosian shield, he spoke.

“I am not one of the enchanted, who come here to die in the banefire. Such a one, no doubt, gave you the body you now wear. But I am alive, not dead; nor I did come here seeking death.”

The Dead Cor made no motion and uttered no sound. But Morlock understood a kind of question. He realized that there was still a rapport between them. He chose not to use it for his answer, though.

“I have come for Gryregaest,” Morlock said. “I claim it. . . . I claim it by right of blood, for my father was—it was my father who bound you here.” His Ambrosian blood burned in him like guilt as he spoke. He added hastily, “Also, there is need for the blade in the world. Leave it to me, and I will do you no harm.”