This Crooked Way Part 29

Aurelius spread his hands in a disturbingly familiar gesture. "A philosophical difference. But you should be glad I don't want to put your family on the front lines of a magical war. They tend to take a fearful toll on innocent bystanders."

"Not that you care."

"Of course I don't. You see how frank I am with you. In a very few years, as I or Morlock count them, you will all be dead anyway. But I know that you care and, as it happens, that gives us a common interest."

"If I could get my family away-"

"No. I must ask you not to do that. Anything like that would surely give Morlock notice I am coming. I must be allowed to enter the house at a time he does not expect. That means you, your brother, and your children must all be there."

"So that you can use us as human s.h.i.+elds. To limit the severity of Morlock's counterattack."

"No. I just want access. I would let you and yours flee before I went in to confront Morlock. If I can find some way to a.s.sure you of that, I'd like to do so."

I sort of believed him. It made a certain amount of sense. Whatever sort of force he was planning to bring with him, Roble and my boys could probably make trouble for them. I wouldn't rule Fasra out of any action, either: what she lacks in muscle she makes up for in moxie.

"I'm not agreeing to anything," I said.

"I don't expect you to."

"But how will I reach you if I decide to go along with you? Because I'm never setting foot in this h.e.l.lhole of a city again if I can help it."

"What? Aflraun?" The old man smiled broadly. "I like it. The place has flavor."

"So does henbane," I said. "Don't waste time with me, Aurelius. You either read this possibility in your little map of the future, or you can't do half of what you say."

His smile became even broader. He drew his map of the future from his heavy cloak and unrolled it. Inside the map was a crooked coin; it looked as if it had been bent somehow. He handed it to me.

"If you decide to help me," Aurelius said, "break the coin. You can do it with your fingers with a little effort, as long as you do it intentionally; it won't break by accident. When you break it, I will know and I will come to the crooked house so that you can let me in."

"How long will it take you to get there?" I pocketed the coin.

"As soon as I can," he said composedly. "It may depend on circ.u.mstances. You understand."

I understood. He probably had it figured to the splintered half-heartbeat, but he wasn't going to tell me. A knowledge-h.o.a.rder. Well, I already knew that about him.

"Is your name also Ambrosius?" I asked, trying to knock him off his game a little.

He laughed pleasantly, but after a few moments it became clear that he wasn't going to say anything.

"Is the old woman in the jar your wife?" I asked. "She said she didn't know you. a.s.suming you are who you say you are."

"I am," the old man replied, "but I am more than that. You'll have to get used to this, if we are to have an acceptable alliance, Naeli. I tend to tell the truth, but I will always know more than I say."

A crooked shadow fell over the table. I looked up to see Morlock standing beside me. "Good day to you both," he said.

I said a faint h.e.l.lo. Aurelius muttered something, and his fingers twitched toward his open map with the moving multicolored squiggles. Then he froze as Morlock put down on the table a blue glazed jar, much like the one I had seen in his workshop. Morlock unhooked his sword belt (thrown over his shoulder as a baldric) and hung it on the back of a chair. He sat down without waiting for an invitation.

"The Badonhill Hostel," Morlock said, stretching out his legs comfortably. "I suppose you call yourself Aurelius around here."

Aurelius had been watching Morlock with his mouth partly open. Now his mouth snapped shut, and I was almost sure his pale cheeks were flus.h.i.+ng slightly. "I have a perfect right to that name," he said after a moment.

Morlock laughed raspingly.

Now I was sure about the blush. Aurelius's jaw clenched twice. Then his face relaxed and he said, "May I offer you something, my boy? A gla.s.s of wine, or perhaps something stronger? I taught them how to use a still, here, and they make the most remarkable beverage out of potatoes. I'm sure you'd enjoy it."

"No, thanks."

I had no idea what that exchange meant, but Aurelius obviously felt he had scored a point. "If you change your mind," he said kindly, "let me know. I always keep a little nearby. Very nearby."

Morlock reached out and tapped the open map. "Teleomancy?" he asked.

"Yes," Aurelius said curtly.

"It won't work."

"Won't it? Won't it, indeed? Why not, pray tell? Listen closely, Naeli. We are to be favored with a lecture by the master of all makers. Do try to pay attention."

"Intentions are not actions. And not all events are intentional acts."

Aurelius laughed now. His laugh was more musical than Morlock's (everyone's is), but somehow it was more unpleasant. He rolled up his map of the future and said, with a polite smile lighting his face, "Well, I must make the best of what poor talents I have. Corrected, whenever possible, by your enormous wisdom."

Morlock opened his hands, closed them.

"A daring retort," Aurelius said to me. "With conversation like that, it's a wonder his wife left him."

"Hey," I said, "leave me out of your p.i.s.sing match."

Aurelius's features wrinkled more deeply with distaste. "A delightfully urbane image. Yes, Morlock, by all means let us leave Naeli out of our p.i.s.sing match. Was there something else you came here to say? Or was it just to give your aged father a few pointers on teleomancy and other forms of urination?"

Aged father. That certainly explained a lot.

"My true father has been dead these three hundred years or more," Morlock said somewhat heatedly.

"Ah, yes," Aurelius drawled. "Old Father Tyr, gone through the Gate in the West, to sit in judgement with Those-Who-Watch until the end of time. That's the story they tell under Thrymhaiam, isn't it? Trust a dwarf to invent a tedious afterlife. just sitting, you know, and judging. What a pity he isn't sitting here now. To judge what became of the man he raised. But his dead hand lives, doesn't it, Morlock-his grip from beyond the grave?" Aurelius gestured at the sheath hanging from the empty chair. "Tyrfing: 'Tyr's grip.' That's what the name of your deadly sword means, doesn't it?"

"Maybe I should have called it 'Merlin's tongue,"' Morlock replied.

"Good G.o.d, how unkind," Aurelius said, now very much at ease. "What would Old Father Tyr say if he heard you talking that way to your ruthen father?" He snapped his fingers, and Zyrn appeared from the half-hidden doorway. "Are you sure you won't have something to wet your throat? I can see this is going to be a long conversation."

Morlock looked at Zyrn's face, which Aurelius (or Merlin?) had yet to do in my presence. Morlock said to his father (ruthen father: I think that means natural father, as opposed to harven-the foster father who raises you), "The conversation needn't be long. I just came to see that Naeli wasn't poisoned again."

Aurelius/Merlin shook his head irritably. "We've been over that, and we're friends now-I think I can say that, Naeli?"

"You may," I said. "I won't."

"Well," the old man said, "I myself feel the need of a little something. Zyrn-"

"Zyrn," Morlock interrupted, "would you be free?"

The waiter's flat pebble-like eyes fixed on Morlock's. "Master?"

I am not your master," said the crooked man. "Would you be free?"

The pebble-like eyes flicked from Morlock to Aurelius to Morlock again. "Master. Yes, master."

Morlock stood and, reaching his fingers into Zyrn's tightly bound hair, ripped something loose. A little blood came with it, and Zyrn fell sobbing to his knees. Morlock dropped the thing in his hand on the ground and crushed it with his heel. Zyrn leaped to his feet and ran away laughing hysterically into the marketplace crowd.

"You insolent little p.r.i.c.k," the old man said, all pretence of civility dropped. He clapped his hands and the table was all of a sudden surrounded by armed men.

"This man offends me," the old man said. "I'll pay the usual fee."

"We fight," said one of the armed men, tapping Morlock on the chest. "Get me? Bring your sword. No need to be splas.h.i.+ng your greasy gut-stuff on everyone's table."

"I am Morlock Ambrosius."

Five or six of the armed men looked at Morlock, looked at Aurelius, and walked away from the table.

But the one who had challenged Morlock wasn't fazed.

"I figure it is you," the challenger said. "The old man, he is always complaining about you. You are a bad fellow, I think, very greasy. Besides, I see your painting down to the Mainmarket Justiciar's House. I know it is you. Kreck, you are even uglier in person. I spit on your ugly face. I spit on your ugly mother. She krecks with dogs, I think. Ugly ones, the only ones that will take her. You get me? We fight. My name-"

"I don't care what your name is."

"My name soon to be famous, dripping with moist gradient. Also, the old man will pay me good. Money and gradient! Yoy and yur!"

"Eh," said Morlock, which I guess was his valuation of money and gradient, if not yoy and yur (whatever they are). He reached for the sword belt hanging from the chair.

"That is a magical weapon, not to be used in a formal duel," old Aurelius said sharply.

"You hear?" said Morlock's challenger, tapping him on the chest. "This formal duel, not informal, like that night when the swineherds taught you how bittersweet love can be, ha ha. I always kill in the formal way, for the juicier gradient. I am very correct, unlike your moldy flea-bitten sister who cools her feverish oft-travelled rump in muddy swamps."

"You win duels with that abuse?" Morlock asked, apparently with real interest.

"Some," said the challenger. "More than a few. People get mad and I get them. Others think I'm stupid and I get them. s.h.i.+k! s.h.i.+k! I always win, because people think me stupid."

"Eh. I think you're stupid, too," Morlock admitted. "Can someone loan me a sword?" he said to the crowd of bravoes standing around. "I'll gift them with whatever gradient I earn by killing s.h.i.+k-s.h.i.+k here."

The armed men-I saw two or three of them were women, actually-all looked a little nervous. One of them reluctantly offered Morlock a short single-edged blade.

Morlock checked its balance and weight, shrugged, and said, "Thanks."

The combatants moved out to the cool red sunlight of the open marketplace to conduct their highly formal duel. The bravoes who weren't fighting formed a ring: this would be a well-witnessed fight, anyway. Marketeers with nearby carts irritably tossed canvas tarps over their goods to protect them from the inevitable blood.

I turned back to the old man who was watching with cool amus.e.m.e.nt. "Do you really think s.h.i.+k-s.h.i.+k is going to kill Morlock?" I asked.

"It's too much to hope for," said Morlock's father. "But you know what? I killed Stador."

"What do you mean?" I whispered.

"I need you to be a little quicker than that, Naeli, because we don't have much time. We talked about responsibility once. I am responsible for your son Stador's death. I wasn't trying to kill him, of course-I was trying to kill Morlock."

"You weren't even there."

"That's the genius of it! I don't think you truly appreciate my genius, Naeli. I didn't need to be there. I didn't even need to be alive. For over a generation I sent nightmares about Morlock to that poor insect who eventually became Math Valone. I fas.h.i.+oned him, and through him Valona's Horde, to be a weapon to strike down Morlock should he pa.s.s through the Kirach Kund on a mission which displeased me. When he did so, the trap snapped shut. Morlock, unfortunately, got away, but you and your family were caught and mauled in it. Stador was killed; you and others were mutilated; no one escaped unscathed, not even that delightful young girl whom you have labored so long to protect and who now suffers from such horrible nightmares. For all this, I am responsible. Do you believe me? It is important that you believe me."

"It seems ... possible."

"That's enough, I think. Do you imagine that we have grown so close, in the two or three conversations we have had, that I will hesitate to do the same thing again, if ever I get the chance?"

"No. I don't suppose you will."

"Right! Exactly! Your family is nothing to me! As long as you travel with Morlock, as long as you are on terms with him, you and your family are in danger. I will destroy them, not out of malice, but simply to get at Morlock. The only way clear is to make a clean break. Help me, and you are out of the danger zone. He won't want to have anything to do with you, even if he does live, and you won't be in danger from me anymore."

"So everything you said before was a lie."

"Not everything," said the old man cheerfully. "I really am trying to save my dear wife's life. This s.h.i.+k-s.h.i.+k is doing better than I had imagined."

I turned to look at the duel. s.h.i.+k-s.h.i.+k had the longer blade and he was trying to make the most of it with showy cuts and stabs. Morlock kept retreating in a fairly narrow circle, his pale eyes cool and concentrated. I had seen my share of life-and-death battles, and in my view Morlock was taking the measure of his opponent.

I turned back to the old man who had risen to his feet and was holding the blue-glazed jar. It was capped, and he was shaking it gently.

"Remember what I've said, Naeli," the old man said. "I don't ask you to blame Morlock, although some people would look askance on a son trying to kill his mother. The point is that danger surrounds him and he can't help it. I can help it, but I won't. You'll have to make a choice about what's more important to you, your family or Morlock. And we already know what that choice will be."

He tossed the jar on the ground and it shattered. It was just a broken jar; there were no old ladies inside.

"I thought that was probably a ruse," he said. "At least I'll have Tyrfing...."

He moved around the table to lift Morlock's sword belt from the chair. As I watched him move, I realized something. His shoulders were as crooked as Morlock's, if not more so. But he stood, and wore his heavy cloak, to disguise it.

He put his hand on the sword grip and drew the blade. His expression went blank.

It wasn't Morlock's sword, Tyrfing. The blade was only about four inches long, and on the bright steel surface was etched a name: PSEUDO-EXCALIBUR. The word or name meant nothing to me, but it obviously did to the old man: his pale wrinkled features grew bloodred with rage.

With a cry of frustration the old man threw the blade down on the ground by the broken jar. "Unbelievable! He walks with this useless toy on his back through the fightingest city in Laent! The man should be locked up for his own safety!"

The old man looked at me, but it wasn't as if he saw me there. "I don't like this," he whispered. "He's up to something. Better drum up a few reinforcements." He walked away and disappeared into the half-hidden door in the hostel walls.

I got up and walked away from the table, into the dim red light of the autumnal evening. s.h.i.+k-s.h.i.+k was lying on his side, gasping through a redbubbling grin that had been sliced in his throat. Then: he didn't gasp anymore and the bubbles grew still.

The bravo who had loaned Morlock his sword was unhappy.

"So you kill him," the bravo was saying. "You're Morlock Ambrosius. For you, this is a kill with very low gradient, if any. You could lose gradient by this killing. That travels with the sword, by our deal."

"What do you want?" Morlock asked. "Money?"

The bravo drew himself up proudly. A moment pa.s.sed. "How much money?" he said.

Morlock handed him a few coins from one of his pockets. The bravo accepted the coins without looking at them, nodded curtly, and walked away.