One for the Morning Glory

by John Barnes

  It went on for a long time, during which Amatus longed to hear some other sound and was unable to tell the king to be quiet. The only sound besides the king's deep bass voice (which broke frequently into a kind of a whine) was the scuffing of the broom ahead of them as it cleared corpse parts from the trail. At last, they regained the main road, and with a cheerful "Well, you know, we get few visitors and we're glad you came—do visit again, and have a nice day, it must be close to daybreak up above," the king was gone. Sylvia's voice screamed in terror and pain.

  6

  One for the Morning Glory

  Amatus made his step not hesitate. He kept walking, and after a moment he heard Sylvia say, "That was a goblin who is walking beside me—"

  "Ouch! Ouch! He's hurting me!" the same voice said.

  "And I expect he'll do it all the way up to the surface—"

  "He's imitating my voice so you won't help me! Ouch! Ouch! Help! Help!"

  The road was long, and this time the only goblins were in the dark behind them. Above their heads, odd shapes of stalactites stuck down into the light of Golias's torch, and though there was no wind in the airless dank, the flame danced and bobbed as if fighting back the dark, and shadows moved overhead in eerie shapes.

  After a while the goblins tired of that game, and began instead to throw rocks far over the party's heads, clattering down on the road a long way in front of them. Every time they threw, they would shriek in Sylvia's voice "Look out!" or "Watch out!" or "Careful!"

  The first few times it was unnerving, but then as it ceased to have much effect the goblins tried to make it work by doing more of it, for goblins have no aesthetic sense and so always think that if something worked once, surely more of it will work now. As a result, soon the great caverns echoed with a hideous cacophany of Sylvia shrieking behind them and rocks clattering to the roadway in front of them. The number of Sylvias shouting warnings was now so large that if the real one had done so, they would never have known, and after a while the implausibility of the situation began to affect Amatus.

  Trying to fight down a giggle, he glanced sideways at Calliope, only to discover that she too was ready to laugh, and when he glanced away he caught John Slitgizzard's eye, and it was already straining with laughter, and so was Psyche's—and that was all, for all of them. They were not permitted to speak, not to look back, but nothing prohibited their laughing, and they did, good and loud and long.

  The silence as they stopped laughing was astonishing. They continued to walk, and only the crunch of their boots told them that even they were alive in those huge spaces.

  The bridge came into sight, and there was still no sign of anything or anyone. The Riddling Beast nodded in a friendly, businesslike way, not at all concerned with people going out, and as they walked by him even wagged his tail. They all scratched his head, especially around the ears (it took two of them to really scratch one ear well), and the beast was evidently delighted. Behind them they heard Sylvia scratch his head too, and heard him warn the goblins to stay well back. Presently she was behind them again, on the bridge, and the Riddling Beast called after them, "They have not touched her, and she is quite unhurt."

  There was still no trouble.

  On the other side of the bridge, as they passed the goblin who stood watch over the gateway, he said, "Please state your business and reason for leaving Goblin Country." He sounded bored.

  Golias did not answer, but kept walking, for they had to reach daylight before they could speak. The others followed along behind him, also not speaking.

  The goblin repeated the question, several times, shouting it the last couple of times, and they kept walking.

  There was a bitter, icy hiss by Amatus's ear, and the heavy black shaft of a crossbow bolt protruded from the middle of Golias's back. With a great cry of despair, the alchemist fell forward, his hands reaching out to claw at the icy stone, the slick gunge smearing his face and beard. His torch landed in the gunge and went out; now there was only the light of the corpseworms.

  Amatus whirled to see the keeper of the gate reloading his crossbow. "Sorry, rules are rules—" he began, with a poisonous smile spreading across his face for just an instant before the Twisted Man's pongee buried itself in the goblin's left eye to the hilt.

  Sylvia was racing forward to them, and behind her goblins in dozens and hundreds, armed to the fangs and roaring with glee, were pouring across the bridge. Unthinkingly, Amatus's hand reached under his cloak and found the first of his brace of three pismires, and he cocked the heavy bronze chutney, then set the lovelock with a soft click, as he drew the weapon.

  "Steady, steady, use it when you're sure it will count," Sir John murmured beside him.

  "Just like the target range," the Twisted Man's bass voice boomed on his other side. Next to him, he saw Calliope take up her place and draw her pismire as well.

  And back behind it all, he could hear the gasping and the bubbling coughs of Golias as Psyche, Mortis, and Sylvia tried to ease his agony.

  The goblins drew steadily nearer, their nostrils visibly twitching, tongues lapping out around their teeth, for though they liked anything that suffered as they ate it, they liked the taste of man-flesh best.

  The goblins were ill-armed, with an assortment of rusty implements mostly stolen from the surface. There were many generals and field marshals, to judge by the uniforms, wielding everything from a crude omnibus at least two centuries old (harmless except as a club, for it was being held by the barrel) to a garden rake. These were the same sycophants who had previously distinguished themselves as nobility; most of them were in the rear rank, using their weapons to prod the "common soldiers" forward.

  The first rush took a long time for the goblins to prepare. For a moment Amatus thought that perhaps they should take advantage of this to grab Golias and run for the surface, but next to him the Twisted Man, as if he had heard the Prince's thoughts, whispered, "With goblins, if you show them your back they'll have you sure. Now when they come at us"—he raised his voice just a bit so the others could hear—"aim for the hungry ones out front, those will be the ones they've kept in pens and starved, who are truly dangerous. And Sir John, if you could find me the three of their generals who seem most proficient at pressing them on—the ones who are doing the best job of frightening the middle rank—and shoot me those three—"

  "Gladly," Slitgizzard said.

  "Aim low," the Twisted Man added. "They're short, and besides that way if you miss or if the ball carries on through, something else may be struck."

  Behind them, Sylvia and Psyche grunted and struggled to get Golias into a position where he could breathe. Beside them Mortis chanted the Septicemia, seventh of the Great Spells, said to be powerful against venom of all kinds. Every so often a little rough breath indicated that the alchemist was hanging on to life. After one such breath, the whole cavern seemed to become utterly still, except for the spat-spat-spat of a few stalactites dripping water onto the stone. Amatus heard the Twisted Man exhale, slowly.

  The goblins lurched forward, propelled mostly by the clubs and blades behind them. The front rank ran straight at them, with no hint of cunning or tactics, only the passionate desire to sink teeth into flesh. Beside him, Amatus heard the Twisted Man's pismire boom, and bracing himself and taking careful aim, Amatus discharged his own into one onrushing goblin. Not pausing to see what the effect had been, he drew the second pismire from his swash, cocked its chutney, and fired again, striking down another goblin, and swift as thought used his final pismire, slaying a third. He had been aware that the Twisted Man and Calliope had also been firing quickly, and as he drew his escree, he had just time for a glance to see that there were other bodies lying dead, and that Sir John's shooting had opened up a hole in the goblin rear through which the middle rank had begun to flee.

  Then they were rushing in on him. None of them were over four feet tall, and none of them did more with their weapons than swing them wildly, but there were so many that it was still danger
ous. He was forced to do nothing but work as if in the simplest sorts of escree drill, striking out as swiftly as he could to stop each attacker. He had no idea how many he had wounded and how many had leapt back. He knew that many had already fled, but what were left now were the hunger-maddened ones.

  It might have been minutes or days that went by in the dim light of the corpseworms. He slashed and thrust over and over, sucking in great breaths of dank, icy air and feeling the hot sweat pour down his arm, knowing his arm was too tired to continue and making it do so anyway.

  Then the Twisted Man beside him gave a great shout, smashed down hard once with his escree butt, and dove and grabbed something from the ground. A moment later, when the giant stood, he had a goblin upside down in one hand, grasped by the ankles, his one huge fist audibly shattering the leg bones of the screaming, wriggling goblin.

  "Unarmed! Cannot fight back! Arm is broken!" the Twisted Man shouted, waving the wailing, sobbing goblin around over his head by its heels as if he were an unusually cruel midwife for an unusually ugly baby. "Eat! Eat! Eat!"

  He hurled the shrieking goblin, with an overhand motion that must have broken its ankles, right over the goblin mob and onto the stone behind it. The goblins whirled and converged on it at once, and its shrieks, sobs, and pleas for mercy echoed through the cavern, along with crunch of teeth on its bones and the wet tearing of its flesh.

  Before Amatus could think what to do next, the Twisted Man had charged forward to the edge of the mob around the goblin who was being eaten, grabbed an unwary goblin from the back of the crowd, hammerlocked it, and forced it to drop its weapon. In another moment, he had broken its limbs and hurled another helpless goblin to its cannibal fellows, and both the screams and the chewing sounds grew louder.

  He began to repeat the process; goblin hunger, after a long fast, is nearly bottomless, and so within the space of mere moments, the Twisted Man had fed all but one of them to each other. This last, bloated, helpless one managed a few tentative snaps at the Twisted Man's ankle before he kicked and rolled it to the edge of the precipice and flipped it over. It fell for a short way, though the illusion made it seem long, but far enough to burst into an undigested mess when it struck bottom.

  They turned and hurried back to Golias. Psyche had drawn the bolt and stopped the bleeding, but it had been tipped with cold gunge from the floor itself, and the alchemist's face was turning a deep green.

  "The wound is near the spine," John Slitgizzard said. "He may die if we move him."

  "I will surely die if you do not," Golias said, his voice a soft bubbling. "And I think I shall die in any case. I would rather do it in sunlight if I can."

  "Take him up," the Twisted Man said. "Gently—and with all care. Sir John and I will bring the bridge down, or hold it for a time if we cannot."

  "The bridge stinks of spells," Mortis said. "I will have to remain with you. Amatus, most of the burden will be yours."

  "I can bear it," he said, and bent to raise the alchemist onto his shoulder, heaving him up with the help of Calliope and Sylvia.

  He could feel his friend's hot breath on his neck, and a warm, sticky place forming on his back.

  "Let's go, then," he said.

  He was surprised at how light Golias was. Amatus seemed almost able to walk normally while carrying the alchemist, and needed only occasional help from Calliope or Sylvia to keep the alchemist from sliding into an awkward position.

  They walked swiftly. Psyche had lighted a torch and carried it in front of them. Calliope, with her own pismires and those of Amatus, guarded their rear. Sylvia fussed and clucked at Golias, trying to make him more comfortable, but the alchemist seemed to be unconscious again.

  It seemed beyond belief to Amatus that they had entered the dark, wet, cold regions under the city scant hours ago, that the day before he had sat a whole afternoon in the sun with no smell of things long dead about him, or that the wet, warm spittle spraying on his neck and the slight weight on his shoulder were all there was of Golias.

  His mind seemed to pass into his senses, the feel of Golias's trim beard against his collarbone, the slightly heavy roll of the alchemist's inert, hanging head. He remembered Golias's patience with him, how the first time he had read a hard book all the way through, Golias had merely smiled at him, clapped him on the shoulder, and given him a harder one as a reward; the long hours fingering the palanquin and having to be shown again and again what was right, even if difficult; the way that, when Amatus finished a fine flourish of rhetoric that failed to answer the point in an argument, Golias's mouth would twitch up at the corner, and he would say, "Quid ergo, Amate?"

  But these were the sorts of thoughts one thinks about someone who has died, and that seemed like bad luck. Amatus pushed himself harder. The breath on his neck was weak, fast, and fluttery.

  Psyche gave a little cry of joy. A moment later Amatus felt brick pavement under his feet.

  They rushed on, and as they did Calliope whistled a soft warning that changed to another glad cry as Mortis, Slitgizzard, and the Twisted Man raced up to join them. "The bridge is down," Mortis said. "It will be a long time before it is raised again."

  Sir John explained. "On my lady's advice, we allowed her to make one small hole in the magic around the bridge, and we cut through it there. It could never have been done at all but for the strength and fury of the Twisted Man, but we left the spells in place and brought it down by nothing except hard work—so now only that will bring it up again. It will be a long time before it is up again, if we may judge how the goblins feel about hard work."

  The Twisted Man added, "And you should know also, Highness, that Mortis was able to alter the spell so that the Riddling Beast faces the other way, to keep goblins in rather than humans out."

  "He was delighted with the change of purpose," Slitgiz-zard added. "Likes the taste of goblin better."

  "But everyone knows the answer to his riddle," Amatus said. He was only half listening to them; the main thing was to get Golias into sunlight.

  Mortis's voice was all but smug. "No goblin can easily answer a question whose answer is 'myself and the things that are mine.' So I would say it will be long years ere we hear of them again by that gate."

  Golias's weight was growing lighter on his back, but Amatus noted with alarm that there was no breath—then just a tiny sigh—a gasp—and then again, no breath.

  "I could carry him if you are tired," Sir John offered, but the Twisted Man said, "No, there is strength and perhaps healing in the touch of a prince, and no one else could carry him more swiftly." The deep voice boomed, for they were now fully into the tunnel through which the city's sewer ran. They could hear tinklings and tricklings as little pipes opened into the broad, deep trough to their left.

  Psyche's torch dimmed for an instant as she went around a bend in front of them, and she gave a short cry of triumph. They rounded the corner and saw, down at the end of the great tunnel, the bursting of dancing, waving light reflecting from the river onto the tunnel ceiling—the sun was almost up and they were almost out.

  In his ear, Golias sighed, "Not in the dark, non in umbris sed in lucibus multis, Amate—"

  Amatus broke into a run, hurling himself forward. The alchemist now seemed to be able to take a little grip.

  As they burst onto the broad stone platform, the sun leapt up from the river like a huge crimson ball, setting all the little waves aflame. Sir John spread his cloak in the sun, and gently Amatus lowered Golias onto it.

  "Thank you most richly, Highness," the alchemist said. His voice was distant and weak. "In the light—remember—always in the light."

  And then suddenly the weight, which had been airy and inconsequential against Amatus's back in that whole long carry through the foul dark, was so heavy against Amatus's supporting hand that the Prince was forced to gently lay Golias down. As if in a dream, he reached forward and closed the alchemist's eyes with the tips of his fingers.

  As the others stood silently, there in the
warming morning light, Amatus rose, looking down on his friend's dead face—

  All of them cried out in surprise. Amatus stared at them. Calliope pointed, and Amatus looked down.

  He still had no left side, nor any left leg, but there, standing on the ground beside him, right where it belonged, was what was unquestionably his left foot. It was even wearing a matching boot. He lifted it gingerly, found that he could move it, touched it to the floor and found he could feel his weight on it when he leaned.

  As he looked around at the three survivors of his four Companions, he saw in their eyes that they understood and accepted, that this was what they had come for.

  Then he wept, passionately and deeply, the way that men weep because they are men.

  The sun continued to climb, on its way about the business of the world, and after a while all of them were also about various business, and if any of them ever spoke about that night again—except to Cedric, who interviewed them all—no record survives.

  II

  The Early Dew

  1

  The Prince in Black

  One might have thought that Amatus would wear only somber black, not go out, and live in mourning for a long time. Boniface would have understood that, and insisted that others leave him alone until his grief began to heal.

  Or one might have imagined that Amatus would instead throw himself into a more debauched and drunken life, trying desperately to forget what he had seen of death, lost in the wild parts of the city in sordid company, without the balancing hand of Golias to restrain him from the worst of it. Cedric would have understood that and protected him from his father's outrage.