Blood of Ambrose (9 page)

“Um. Well observed.”

The trail of dust was now somewhat distorted by the wind, but clearly its trail began in the Dead Hills and led toward the edge of Gravesend Field, the anchor building now visible, black against the night-blue western sky.

“A messenger?” Wyrth guessed. “From the cavalry war-leader to Urdhven.”

Ambrosia laughed aloud. “What would you give, Wyrtheorn, to hear the delicate phrasing of that message? ‘You see, Your Worship, there was this horse…’”

“Ah, Lady Ambrosia, what wouldn't I give? An aethrium spike for each of Urdhven's lordly earlobes. A bowl of chicken blood for his slightly shopworn golem. A stirrup-cup of phlogiston to lend, shall we say, a mellow glow to his last and longest ride—”

“Morlock!” Ambrosia shouted. “What are you doing?”

Her brother had leaned forward abruptly and was speaking in a low voice to Velox. In the silence following her cry, Morlock's brisk lilting syllables rang clear.

“Westhold dialect, isn't it, Lady Ambrosia?” Wyrth remarked. “I never could follow it, but I'm not the horsey sort.”

“Oh, Wyrth, you're lying to me again.”

“No, really. But I guess Morlock is putting the finger (or the hoof?) on our Lord Protector. That must be him standing there, at the edge of the lists….”

They struck the ground; Velox pushed off with something like deliberation, changing their direction slightly, putting them in a short high leap. Velox screamed again, the cry of battle. They would next strike the ground within Gravesend Field.

Had Velox not been screaming Ambrosia would have pounded on Morlock's crooked shoulders and demanded an explanation. She would have advocated the course of prudence, deliberation, and the better part of valor.

Uselessly! After all, she realized, that rug had already been pulled out from under their feet. It was too late to think of caution when you had spent the early evening chasing cavalry detachments through the hills on the back of a battle-mad, laughing, middle-aged flying horse. Wasn't it?

Morlock looked back over his crooked shoulder and gave a crooked grin. Then, turning, he threw back his head (nearly braining her) and began to chant loudly in Dwarvish. Wyrth joined in at the third syllable. Ambrosia herself recognized the song, though she did not know Dwarvish well. It was perhaps the most common “Praising of Day,” sung each day at dawn by the dwarvish clans of Thrymhaiam. She didn't know the words, but she wordlessly lent her own cracking voice to the simple tune.

Heolor charn vehernam choran harwellanclef;

wull wyrma daelu herial hatathclef;

feng fernanclef modblind vemarthal morwe;

Rokh Rokhlanclef hull veheoloral morwe.

Dal sar drangan an immryrend ek atlam
,

dal sar deoran an kyrrend knylloram—
^*

So singing, they returned to Gravesend Field.

When the horse and its three singing riders fell out of the dark sky, the King instantly ceased to disbelieve in all the outlandish stories that he had heard about his ancient Ambrosian kin. They might not all be true. But for every false one there would be an even more unlikely tale that
was
true.

He had time to think this. He had time, open-mouthed, to watch the Lord Protector roll in the dust to keep from being brained by one of the descending horse's hooves. Then he squawked and rolled in the dust himself for the same reason.

The horse's right rear hoof struck the ground not an arm's length from the King's head. Something between the hoof and the ground glowed like molten glass. He glanced up as the hoof left the ground, and he met the eye of his Grandmother, seated between her brother and the dwarf Wyrtheorn. The King's Grandmother waved cheerily at him (her hand was all bound up with cloth) and shouted something he couldn't hear.

The King wondered if he was dreaming. The horse and its riders were gone, and he was left behind in a cloud of dust.

Then a soldier seized him by the ankles and hurled him like a sack over his shoulder. What breath the King had was knocked out of him. He lay unresisting with his head against the soldier's back, watching the man's boots flicker in and out of sight as he ran desperately into the night. Clearing the lists in a single amazing bound, he circled around the field to lose himself in the myriad graves of Ontil. He didn't pause from running for a long time—more than long enough for the King to regain his breath and his wits. When the soldier, gasping painfully, slowed to a halt in the shadow of a mausoleum, the King was not surprised by the voice that spoke to him.

“Think we'll be…all right here…Your Majesty,” Lorn gasped. “For a bit…begging your pardon…Majesty…set you on your feet—”

“Never mind, Lorn,” the King said quickly. “Just let me go and I'll roll off.”

But Lorn lifted the King carefully back over his shoulder and put him down on the ground. Then the Legionary leaned back against the tomb and gasped helplessly. In a few moments these exertions subsided and Lorn was able to speak again.

“Beg your pardon, Your Majesty,” said Lorn. “It's been a night-and-a-flipping-half for me.”

“Please, Lorn,” said the King. “I'm just glad we're both alive. When I saw you lying on the field I was sure Urdhven had killed you.”

The shadow that was Lorn nodded sharply, and the King could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke. “The Protector knocked me down in the fight; I thought it best to let him think he'd knocked me out. I'm not half the swordsman he is.”

“But ten times the tactician, Lorn.”

“Ssh, Your Majesty,” Lorn replied, sounding pleased. “My old dad taught me that trick, and maybe half a dozen others. I'm not one for these great prancings and politickings. But I know where my duty lies, Your Majesty.”

Silence fell. The word “duty” had an unpleasant effect on the King. He realized their escape was only temporary, that Lorn intended them to return to the city, with its prancings and politickings. He'd half hoped the loyal soldier would recommend a flight into the Empire, or even beyond it. But he hadn't the courage to suggest it himself. “What should we do now?” he asked.

“Well, Your Majesty,” said Lorn, intent on the problem. “There's a band of soldiers at Upriver Gate I think we can trust to let us into the city. Once there…”

The King sighed.

“Scattered like rats,” Ambrosia said reflectively, as they flew over the anchor building. “The army's not what it was.”

“It's the weird,” Morlock replied. “The weird is always terrifying.”

“Particularly when it comes out of the Dead Hills after dark,” Wyrth observed. “I think he's right, Lady Ambrosia. If we'd merely been a military force of superior strength, those soldiers would have fought like madmen.”

“It's still a weakness,” Ambrosia insisted. “In the old days it never would have happened. You remember, Morlock.”

Her brother grunted concessively, and there was silence for a time as the horse made long ground-spurning bounds. The bright cloud of the city grew visibly nearer, over the chaos of tombs.

“You know,” Wyrth said presently, “I hate to say this…but I think we're going to have to abandon horse.”

“Yes,” Morlock agreed reluctantly. “He's not responding to the bridle. We can't ride him till he tires out.”

Ambrosia, who had come to that conclusion some time ago, said, “Let's wait a bit, though. The tombs thin out in the hills, just under the city's walls—it's supposed to be bad luck to bury people there. There'll be less chance of bashing out our brains on a grave marker.”

“We should leap just after Velox lands and jumps off again,” Morlock remarked thoughtfully. “Momentum. We'll hit the ground at a slower speed.”

Wyrtheorn said something in Dwarvish, and Morlock replied, “No. I don't think so.” Ambrosia began to ask a question, then realized she didn't want to know.

Velox landed atop a mausoleum and kicked off again. The city grew visibly nearer.

Wyrth began to unbuckle Morlock's pack, which was strapped behind the saddle, and called forward to Morlock, “I'll drop this off just before we jump, shall I?”

“Some time before,” Morlock corrected. “You must not miss the moment.”

“You don't want your tools damaged.”

“You're more important, Wyrtheorn,” Morlock said dispassionately.

“Soon, now,” Ambrosia said, to break up this display of sentiment. “There are no graves beneath us anymore.” Velox landed on soft grass and leapt up into the sky.

“Yes,” Morlock said. “The next leap will take us too close to the city walls. Drop the pack now, Wyrth.”

A thump from below announced the pack's arrival below and behind them.

“Just after the next landing,” Morlock said. “And when you jump, clear well away from the horse.”

“Why?” Ambrosia asked suspiciously.

There was a pause as Morlock obviously gauged whether there was time enough for an explanation. “You'll see,” was all he said, in the end.

“Hmph!”

The city rose like the ragged edge of a dense field of stars over the last remaining hill. Then, as they descended, it was occulted by the hill again. The charger fell downward; his hooves struck the ground.

The three riders left the horse at practically the same moment, Morlock and Wyrtheorn leaping off the left side and Ambrosia off the right. She was chiefly intent on landing on her shoulder, to spare her hands and wrists, but she couldn't help but be aware that as they left the horse, he plunged straight up as if an invisible hand were drawing him into the sky. He screamed delightedly, and it occurred to Ambrosia that without his riders as counterweights, the phlogiston in his shoes would lift him even farther.

Then she struck the ground, on her shoulder indeed, but the jar sent bolts of pain shooting to the tip of each broken finger. She rolled downhill a ways before she managed to slide to a halt. Above her she heard the continuous scream of the warhorse fade away as he fell upward into the endless abyss of the star-thick sky.

How far would he go? she wondered. Would he reach the paths of the moons and the sun?

Silence settled over the hillside. Ambrosia, as her pain and wonder faded, became conscious of two breathing heaps slightly farther down the slope.

“Morlock!” she said.

The larger of the two heaps grunted.

“I'm never going to have you rescue me again.”

After a pause Morlock said reflectively, “It was worth it, then.” The silence persisted through another brief pause, until a faint snoring announced that Morlock had fallen asleep.

*
Blindly Death takes hold of the timid and the brave;
vermin devour the evil and good alike;

Maker and miner sleep in the same silence;
dragon and dragonkiller fall under the same fell.

There is one darkness that ends all dreaming,
one light in which all living will awake—

ne day Lorn returned to their room in the city with what the King had learned to think of as his “bad news” expression. The first time the King had seen it was almost half a year before, perhaps ten days after their escape from Gravesend Field. The city Water Wheel, where Lorn did the day-labor that paid for their food and lodgings, was closed for repairs. They lived from hand to mouth, with no savings, and that meant there was no supper that night, nor the next either. On the third day the wheel reopened, and they gorged that night on fresh wheat bread, slices of roast meat, and cheese. It had been wonderful, worth the fast. But that first day! Lorn had taken forever to break the news to his King, afraid the fragile boy would collapse in hysterics at the thought of hunger. But the King had often gone without meals for days at a time, for fear of poison, and as it happened he handled the fast better than Lorn (who was used to regular fare and plenty of it at his legion's refectory). And it would always be that way with Lorn's “bad news.” The badness was mostly in Lorn's own mind.

So as soon as he saw the renegade Legionary, the King smiled and said, “Out with it Lorn. It can't be so bad.”

Lorn smiled tentatively—as usual—and said, “Well, Your Majesty…no supper tonight, I'm afraid.”

“We've still got salt beef and flatbread from last night,” the King replied. He always laid a little by, now.

“Pretty dry, they were,” Lorn said wryly. “They'll be drier tonight. I forgot to bring up water, too.”

“Lorn,” the King said patiently, “what is it? Was the wheel closed again?”

“No, Your Majesty. I worked and was paid.” He paused, then blurted out, “I spent the wages.”

“Oh?” The King was surprised and a little embarrassed. This seemed very unlike Lorn.

“Yes, Your Majesty. I…I bought something.”

“Well, it's not important.”

“But it is, Your Majesty. I think it might be very important.”

He had it in his hand, now—a linen bag about twice as long as one of his thumbs. There was something inside it. He reached it and took it out: a beautifully detailed model of a crow.

“Lorn—it's dwarvish!” the King said, not meaning the adjective literally. (It was a general term of praise.) “It must be unique.”

“Dwarvish it just might be,” Lorn replied, “but—with respect, Your Majesty—unique it's not. Why, I've seen dozens of these things around the city in the last few calls.
^*
Old Genjandro by the market has been selling them like loaves of bread. But I never heard one speak until today. When I did…I had to buy one. Got it from some peddler in an alleyway.”

“Heard one?”

Lorn, by way of answer, carefully put the crow figure down on the table in the center of the room. After a moment, it flapped its wings twice and croaked a few syllables. The King started in surprise and said, “How does it do it? Is it alive?”

“I don't know, Your Majesty. But—your courtesy—please listen.”

The bird flapped its wings and croaked. There was a pause of perhaps two heartbeats, and it did so again, but the croaked syllables were different.

“Your Majesty,” said Lorn, “my mother's parents were Coranians. I've never told anyone that, but it's true. They kept to the old ways, and every day they spoke at least three hundred words in…in that language of theirs. The one from the Wardlands.”

Lorn paused, and in the interval of silence the crow figure croaked again.

“Lorn!” the King cried. “You're right! It's the secret speech!”

The soldier winced at the King's bluntness, but nodded. “I only know a few words. But I know you've been taught more.”

The King raised a hand for silence. In truth, the recent political upheavals had played havoc with his lessons. (His language tutor had been an early victim of the Protector's purge.) But the message was simple, clear, and apparently meaningless.

“It says,
vengeret pel
, and then,
ostin shae
,” the King reported finally. “That should mean: there is light under the wings. Or maybe: there is hope among the feathers. I don't really—”

“But it's obvious, you'll forgive my saying so, Your Majesty,” Lorn said. He picked up the crow and turned it upside down. Under the left wing there was a design etched into the metal of the figure. Instinctively he rubbed at it with his thumb. Now the etching blazed out gold against the ebony metal of the figure: a bright hawk in flight over a branch of shining thorns.

“The crest of Ambrosius!” exclaimed the King.

Suddenly the crow took flight. It spun one swift circle around the King's head and plunged toward the window. It burst through the slats of the closed shutter and was gone in the night.

For the next few moments they were both speechless. But neither needed speech to understand the signs: the symbol only Merlin or his children would dare to use, magic, a crow…

“Merlin's children,” said the King finally. “My Grandmother. It's not just the Protector after me. They're trying to find me, too!”

“I'm afraid so, Your Majesty,” said Lorn. He was wearing his “bad news” expression again.

That same evening a similar conversation took place in the palace called Ambrose.

“It's quite simple, Lord Urdhven,” the Protector was told by his poisoner. “Turn the crow upside down. Spread its left wing. See the design? Rub off the enamel; yes. Now it comes clear.”

“I recognize it,” the Protector said with distaste. “It's the crest of those crook-backed bastards.”

“More precisely: the crest of the Ambrosii.”

The black crow figure shot out of the Protector's hand, flew a tight circle around the poisoner's head, and departed out the nearest window into the dark of early evening.

“Where is it going?” the Protector demanded, his voice level.

“They all go to the same place, Lord Urdhven, which is the same place they all come from: Genjandro's shop, adjoining the Great Market.”

“Who is this Genjandro?”

“An Ambrosian sympathizer, apparently. He was one of the thousand invited to Ambrosia's trial.”

The Protector's face darkened at the mention of that fiasco.

“Genjandro, since then, has been selling these toys for practically nothing, in lots of a dozen. There are hundreds in the city as we speak.”

“How do they work?”

Steng actually laughed. “Death and Justice! I don't know. There aren't ten people alive who do, I expect. But their purpose is clear enough: the Ambrosii are trying to make contact with the King and his supporters in the city.”

“That must
not
happen.” The Protector pondered the problem briefly. “If the Ambrosii are not at the shop, they have an agent there. I'll send a troop of soldiers to the place. Anyone present will be taken and put to the question. You'll ask the questions, Steng.”

“A wise plan, my lord,” said Steng with satisfaction. He rather enjoyed questioning prisoners; he'd learned a good deal about people by watching them under torture.

“You've done well, Steng.”

“Thank you, Lord Urdhven.”

“But never mention that business at Gravesend Field again. I won't have it.”

“Yes, Lord Protector,” said the poisoner humbly. His interest in torture didn't extend to undergoing it himself.

“One of your crows has come back, Morlock.”

“Give it some grain and ask what it's heard.”

“Not a real crow. One of the little machines you and Wyrtheorn made.”

Wyrtheorn and Morlock were making toys in the back of Genjandro's shop. But at this news they downed tools and went into the front.

Genjandro and Ambrosia were standing on opposite sides of the counter with the gleaming black crow figure between them.

“The wing?” Morlock asked.

“The paint's been rubbed off the crest,” Ambrosia told him. “A single swipe by a thumb considerably larger than Lathmar's.”

“Well observed,” Morlock conceded, looking for himself.

“Canyon keep her observations,” Wyrtheorn swore. “That just means another false trail. Or a trap.”

“Probably,” Morlock agreed. “Still: it might be Lorn. Find one, find the other.”

Ambrosia was dismantling the crow with the swift skill of long practice. At the figure's heart was a flame in a crystal box. The flame, burning parallel to the ground, was pointed north and west toward the city's poorer quarter…or to Ambrose on the city's northwest edge, or perhaps the open country beyond that.

The flame had been kindled when someone voiced recognition of the Ambrosian crest on the underside of the crow's wing, and it would direct itself continually toward that spot where the recognition had been voiced. Of the hundreds of mechanical crows Morlock and his apprentice had tirelessly constructed at a feverish pace in the seven months after Ambrosia's trial and the King's disappearance, perhaps three dozen had returned to Genjandro's shop. All of these had been activated by unregenerate Coranians, or perhaps by accident. But their startling behavior had stimulated the most extraordinary rumors in the city, and had directed unwelcome attention toward their source, Genjandro. He had stopped selling the crows some time ago, but all four expected at any time a visit from the Protector's Men. It was this expectation that sparked Wyrth's next suggestion.

“Let's get the hell out of here.”

“I can't get out,” Genjandro observed mildly.

“You can. We can set you up in a new place with ten times the stock. Tell him, Morlock.”

“We don't lack money,” Morlock conceded. “But we must follow the trail, Wyrtheorn.”

“The trail is following us, Morlock. I tell you I don't like it. Trust me; the Protector's Men come calling tonight.”

“One of us must go,” Ambrosia stated. “But at least one of us must stay.”

Morlock nodded. “They may come here. The shop has become unpleasantly notorious.”

“Let one go,” Genjandro suggested. “The rest of us will wait here. All will share the risk. When the quester returns, we will consult our common interest.”

“Well said,” Ambrosia approved. Morlock nodded. Wyrtheorn issued a crackling Dwarvish polysyllable, but did not seem to disagree.

“Then,” Genjandro said, bringing forth a worn brassy slug from an inner pocket, “will the Lady Ambrosia make the call? Face or shield?” And he spun the coin toward the rafters.

The King was alone. It had taken an unthinkably long time, but he had finally persuaded Lorn to go to Genjandro's shop.

“We're well enough off,” Lorn had kept saying stubbornly. “We don't need those damned Ambrosii.”

“Lorn,” the King reminded him, “I'm an Ambrosius.”

“You're likewise heir to Uthar the Great!” Lorn insisted. “Your father would have been ten times the Emperor he was if your honored ancestress had let him learn to wipe his own nose when the snot ran out.”

“Lorn!”

“Your Majesty, it's truth and time someone spoke it. Your dad spent half his life being nursemaided by Lady Ambrosia and the rest of it being led around by his wife and his wife's brother. That's why the empire is in the hole it's in today. Urdhven's a traitor and a kinslayer; there's no forgiving that. But it's also true he was tempted too far. Your Majesty, no one but the Emperor should get that close to the throne.”