This Crooked Way

by James Enge

  “Rats!” I shouted. But either he didn't hear me (or couldn't read my lips) or he didn't see what I was driving at. Desperately, I tapped my left arm with my right hand, and then mimed playing a flute. All this activity caused my grip on the root to loosen and I almost fell. But by the time I had regained my perch Morlock was laughing (not at my acrobatics, I hope) and drawing the pipe from his sleeve-pocket.

  He put the pipe in his mouth and began to play. I couldn't hear it, exactly, but somehow the feel of it penetrated the wax earplugs, almost like the Silent Word. It was a squeaky, spiky, chittering tune; it went on and on, never repeating but somehow always the same.

  The rats began to appear, rising like a dark tide from the ground. The Boneless One seemed to try to halt them with the Silent Word, but its magic was masked by the endless chittering song from Morlock's pipe.

  The Boneless One tried to eat the lives of the rats as they approached. Many died, but there were always more behind. The dark tide rose over the swollen shapeless form of the Boneless One and covered it.

  The mindless whisper I always heard within me rose to an almost audible shriek and fell silent at last. The rats moved on to the other bodies scattered around the floor, leaving behind a bloody stain on the bone carpet and nothing else. The Boneless One was dead.

  Morlock's pipe stuttered and shrieked. The living rats fled in terror. Morlock pocketed the pipe and tentatively unplugged one ear.

  Both of my ears were already clear. The air was free of Silent Words; my mind was free of demonic whispers.

  “Good idea about the rats,” Morlock said laconically.

  “I never liked rats before,” I said, “but now I do. When I settle down, I'm going to keep tame ones, like birds.”

  Morlock grunted and climbed back up onto the root. “Up or down?” he asked.

  I looked down at the bone-carpeted bellylike chamber, scattered with half-eaten motionless Bargainers. I looked upward to the light.

  “Up,” I said, and we went up.

  We hadn't been at it long before Naeli's voice fell down to us from the light, followed by a rope. I swarmed up it and Morlock followed.

  Naeli had tied it to the twisted tree standing above the mouthlike hole. The boys and Fasra were standing uneasily, with knives and clubs in their hands, at the edge of the hole. Further off, a ragged halo of Bargainers stood, glaring at us as we emerged from the pit.

  “Let's get going,” Naeli said to me crisply. “Some of these people don't seem to like what we're doing.”

  “I thought they'd scatter as soon as the Boneless One was dead,” I muttered.

  “Some did. But most of these guys were Bargainers because they wanted to be, and they suspect you of killing their god.”

  “That was Morlock,” I said, gesturing at the bedraggled, crooked figure emerging from the hole.

  “Roble's idea. Call it a mutual effort,” he said. His gray gaze crossed Naeli's dark one; it was like swords clashing.

  “Man, were you a lot of trouble,” Naeli said. “I thought you were going to get us all killed. Morlock? I'm Naeli. This is Fasra. I guess you know my boys. Let's get out of here.”

  Morlock shook his head. “You go on,” he said. “I have to find Tyrfing.”

  “A friend of yours?” demanded Naeli.

  “My sword.”

  “Oh, that thing. The Whisperer had us bury it outside of town. I'll show you where it is.” She turned and charged straight toward the crowd. We followed in a wedge behind. The Bargainers split up and ran as we approached, and soon we were out of town. We heard the Bargainers, although we didn't see them, gathering nearby in the woods as we dug down to recover Morlock's sword. So as soon as we had it we started moving westward as fast as our feet could take us.

  That was days ago. We discussed going back to Four Castles, but rejected the idea. Naeli, with her filed teeth, would be an outcast there. And the thought of living among Coranians, who had fed on human lives to extend their own, was repugnant to me. Perhaps one of the three remaining Barons would pick up where the Boneless One had left off; perhaps they had already been stomped to bits by someone following Morlock's lead. Maybe Liskin would be the new power in Four Castles; he was already pretty boneless. It didn't matter. Four Castles was already far off and a little unreal to me, like somewhere you've read about in a book. It wasn't my place anymore. I don't have a place, at the moment; these days I have people instead.

  Each day we move a little further west than I've ever been, camping at sunset. It's night, as I write this, but no one is sleeping. The boys and Fasra are sitting by the fire, swapping stories with each other and some jar from Morlock's backpack that thinks it's an old lady. Morlock is peering about inside Naeli's mouth; he says he can carve supplements for Naeli's teeth, so that she will have a slightly less wolflike smile.

  I'm sitting here writing, not saying much—speaking aloud maybe one word for every thousand I scribble down. In a way, I think I miss the wordless whispering I have always heard in my head. It helped show me what I was by being what I was not: I was the enemy of the Enemy. But not now: in the last few days, I helped kill a Baron, the Enemy that lived in the woods, and (with them) my whole way of life. But here I am, somehow still alive. I don't feel like speaking much until I figure out who I am, now that the Enemy is dead.

  This much I know. I will not live three hundred years. But, however long I live, I will wear no one else's uniform. I will swear loyalty to one person at a time. However long I live, my life will belong to me, and to those I know and care about. Except for that rule of love, all my hours are lawless now.

  It's late; we had all better get some sleep. New lands, and new lives, tomorrow.

  “T he truth is my blood and breath, master: I cannot lie. I could sell either the youth or the maiden for six fingers of silver in Menebacikhukh, that benighted city of the Anhikh Komos where I was born. I will give you three silver fingers for either of them, seven for both.”

  We were crossing the marketplace in Sarkunden when the slave-trader put a long corpselike hand on one of Morlock Ambrosius's slightly uneven shoulders and made his pitch. Before that day I'd never so much as seen the walls of a city this big. From what I'd seen inside those walls, I didn't think I was going to like big cities much, even before the slaver spoke to Morlock. As the maiden under discussion, I waited for Morlock's response with real interest.

  Morlock shot a cold gray glance at the Anhikh slave-trader and pointed out, “Buying or selling human beings has been illegal in the Ontilian Empire for more than two hundred years.”

  “The contract would be unofficial, of course. I would trust to the honor I see in your face, and perhaps, for form's sake, a guarantee placed in the hands of some mutually reliable person.” He let his eyes linger on me, stroking his lips in an oddly salacious gesture.

  “Is he a slaver or a con man, Thend?” Morlock asked my brother. “What do you say, Fasra?” he added, glancing at me.

  “Whatever's creepier,” I said flatly.

  “I might go as high as eight fingers of silver,” the Anhikh continued, “in spite of the unfashionably dark color of their skin and their lack of manners. The latter would soon be mended, yes indeed it would. What do you say, master? What is your response, your (shall we say) wholly unofficial response?”

  “I am not your master,” was the first part of Morlock's unofficial response. The second part left the slave-dealer on all fours, gasping with pain.

  “Keeps,” Thend muttered to Morlock. Following his glance, I saw a couple of armored figures approaching.

  Morlock nodded and paused his unofficial responses while the soldiers made their way through the market crowd. They wore gear exactly like the city guards who stood at the gates, except they had the fist insignia on their shields: Keepers of the Peace.

  “No fighting in the Market,” the senior Keep said, as he came up. “You'll have to come along.”

  “This man is a slaver,” Morlock said.

  “So?”
/>
  “Slavery's illegal.”

  The senior Keep scratched his face and stared at Morlock for a while. “I guess it is,” he finally admitted. “Technically. But this guy paid his market fee just like everyone else. What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Let's check his wagon.”

  The senior Keep shrugged and gestured at the Anhikh. The junior Keep dragged him to his feet and checked the number on his market pass. We all trooped over to the matching wagon. On the outside brightly colored letters said (in two languages I knew, and probably others I didn't) that this was the roving headquarters of the Perambulations of Evanescent Joy and Portable Fun Company. Inside, the wagon was one big cage. When we dropped the back flap of the wagon and let in the light, dozens of eyes gleamed at us hopelessly through the bars. The wagon was half full of children of various ages, sizes, colorations (fashionable and unfashionable).

  “They're orphans,” the Anhikh slaver said sullenly.

  “There's no orphan exception to the slavery law,” Morlock pointed out.

  As the senior Keep hesitated, Morlock forced the lock on the cage with something he had in his pocket and opened the door. The children, suddenly mobile, streamed out and vanished into the nearby alleys like water into sand.

  The Anhikh muttered a few words that sounded like curses.

  “Cool it,” said the senior Keep. “Thanks to this gentleman you're a law-abiding citizen again. Keep it that way, or the girls'll be calling you ‘Stumpy.’”

  We left the Anhikh muttering imprecations over his broken lock. “Hey, pal,” said the senior Keep to Morlock, “your face is sort of familiar. Didn't I cut your head off once?”

  “It seems unlikely.”

  “It seemed that way at the time, let me tell you. But this guy whose head I cut off, or maybe didn't, he was an imperial outlaw. You'll still have to come with me; your young friends can go about their business.”

  Morlock silently handed the guard a piece of paper with a seal of dark blue wax on it.

  The senior Keep whistled as he read it. “An immunity. Signed by the imperial commander at Sarkunden, Vennon himself. Only good for one day, but it must have been expensive.”

  “An associate acquired it for me.”

  “He must like you a lot.”

  “Not really.”

  The Keep tapped the seal with one finger. “This thing isn't actually valid, you know. Commander Vennon, may he lick his own elbow, can't suspend the Emperor's order of outlawry. I could still bring you in, or kill you on the spot.”

  “Could you?” Morlock wondered mildly.

  “Uh.” The Keep's face took on a remembering look. “Maybe not,” he admitted. “Anyway, my skipper wouldn't half-bless me if I did. It'd bring down the market value for those temporary immunities, for one thing. My name's Thrennick—no, don't tell me yours, not when we're getting along so well. See you around sometime.”

  We continued across the marketplace until we came to a place that proclaimed itself, in a large banner, as CHARIS'S DISCOUNT EMPORIUM OF DELUXE WONDERS. A smaller sign burbled, No job too large or too small! Satisfaction guaranteed! Charis and his team of expert thaumaturges will not rest until—The rest was water-damaged and I couldn't read it, but I doubted I was missing much. A still smaller but more convincing sign said firmly, No Credit.

  We pushed our way inside. As my eyes were still adjusting to the dimness, the shopkeeper rushed up to us, his blunt pale features stretched to display a somewhat oily professional friendliness.

  “Honored sirs, young lady, what can we do for you?”

  “You can bring me Charis,” Morlock said.

  I could see reasonably well by now—well enough to catch sight of a convincing replica of Morlock's head staring down at us from a tall, tomblike display case. I turned around to point it out to Thend, but he'd already noticed it.

  “I am afraid that Charis sees no one, absolutely no one, unless it is absolutely necessary,” the shopman purred. “It is one of his little ways. I am Stokkvenn, his chief assistant master thaumaturge-in-training, and I can almost certainly meet your needs. In all honesty, you might prefer to deal with me. Charis is a brilliant man, the greatest wonder-worker of our establishment, but his manners are a trifle—Excuse me, sir, but have we not met before? I'm almost sure of it.”

  Morlock pointed at the head glaring down at us. Stokkvenn looked at it, back at Morlock, and said, “Charis will be out to see you in a moment.”

  Stokkvenn disappeared into an inner room. Presently the same door opened and another man emerged. He was almost the opposite of Stokkvenn—tall, sharp-featured, somewhat distant in his manner. But he was pale—Death and Justice was he pale-skinned! At one time I'd thought Morlock was the whitest man in the world, but next to him this other fellow was practically translucent: ice white skin, yellow hair and eyebrows, green squinting eyes.

  “Morlock Ambrosius,” the newcomer said. “This is indeed a pleasure.” If it really was a pleasure, his face didn't show it.

  “Charis,” Morlock said.

  “I hope—At our last meeting—K-k-k-k-k. Or quasi-meeting, rather—” Charis's face hardly moved as he spoke, but from his strange disjointed speech I gathered he was terrified of Morlock.

  “Do you have what I came for?” Morlock asked briskly. “If so, we need not consider the past.”

  “Er. K-k-k-k-k. I have. That is, I have some of the information you asked for.”

  “Paid for.”

  “K-k-k-k-k. Yes. Quite. Indeed, I got it right away. But months have passed since then, and I thought…K-k-k-k-k. Matters may have changed, you see. So I purchased an update, at great expense and for your personal convenience.”

  “Then?” Morlock replied, stepping closer and looking intently at Charis's face.

  “The messenger from the guard captain is due. K-k-k-k-k. Is due any moment. Won't you wait, and—k-k-k-k-k—await him, as it were?”

  “Hm,” said Morlock. He reached over and tore out one of Charis's eyeballs.

  All right—I admit it. I screamed. So did Thend, no matter what he says.

  But the funny thing is: Charis didn't scream. No blood poured from the empty eye socket. He just stood there, squinting with one eye and saying, “K-k-k-k-k. I understand. K-k-k-k-k. Your impatience. K-k-k-k-k. Very understandable, even laudable, impatience. K-k-k-k-k—”

  Morlock turned toward us, displaying the eyeball in his hand. Except, now that I brought myself to look at it, it didn't really look like an eyeball. More like a glassy imitation of one. The black glittering shreds hanging from the back of the eyeball didn't look like nerves, or anything that had grown inside a human body. Thend, obviously nerving himself up, stepped forward to take the thing and look closer at it.

  “It's glazed clay,” Morlock said with something like contempt in his voice. “The iris is painted on!” Apparently that was bad.

  He turned back to the thing he had called Charis and, drawing his knife, split it open from collarbone to belly. I managed to keep from screaming this time, but only barely. It was babbling all the while about “—an investment—k-k-k-k-k—as it were, in time, to pay off royally—” but, increasingly, I couldn't look on the thing as human. It stopped speaking and moving when Morlock drew something out of the gap in its chest—a scroll of some sort.

  “It's not Charis,” he said. “It's a golem in Charis's image. Not Charis's own work, clearly.”

  “You can tell?” I asked faintly.

  “I taught Charis how to make a decent eyeball,” Morlock grumbled. He unrolled the sheet in his hand and glanced at it, adding, “The life-scroll isn't in his handwriting. And the stupid thing couldn't even speak properly. Not the product of the establishment's greatest wonder-worker.”

  “But maybe,” I guessed, “the chief assistant master thaumaturge-in-training?”

  “Exactly,” Morlock approved. “Thend: get him.”

  Death and Justice, that annoyed me. Sure, Thend was big and strong for his age (almost fifteen
). But I was about to point out that just because I was thirteen years old and a girl, it didn't mean I couldn't slap someone like Stokkvenn around and make him like it. Then I looked Morlock in the eye (those flaring gray irises were not painted on) and I decided it wasn't the strategic moment to say so.

  “Fasra,” he said to me, “drop the brass shutter over the window, bolt it, and stand by the door. Here.” He tossed me the knife in his hand and said, “We may have company soon.”

  I was tempted to ask who'd died and made him God. On the other hand, I'd learned the hard way that sometimes it's smart to listen to someone who knows more than you do. I bit my tongue and did as he asked. He busied himself behind the counter, pulling things out of drawers and looking at them.

  Pretty soon Thend appeared, dragging a squealing Stokkvenn behind him. “He was trying to go out the back door,” Thend said to Morlock, and tossed the shopman up against the counter in front of Morlock.

  “You bolted it?”

  “Yes.”

  “We may have guests. Will it hold?”

  Thend shrugged. “Not forever.”

  Morlock turned to Stokkvenn. “You wrote this,” he said coolly, waving the life-scroll of the dead golem.

  “No. I—”

  “I'm not asking you; I'm telling you that I know. You keep the register here—the ink is still on your hands—and the life-scroll was written in the same handwriting. You made this golem of your employer. Why?”

  Stokkvenn quacked wordlessly for a few moments and finally said, “The Sandboys made me do it.”

  If he'd said the Fluffy Puppies I couldn't have been more surprised. In my mind's eye I pictured a Sandboy as a friendly little figure made of sand, sitting on a beach somewhere.

  “Who are the Sandboys?” Morlock asked.

  “The Sandboys! The Sandboys!”

  “Yes: them. Who are they?”