This Crooked Way

by James Enge

  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 amusement. “Do you really think Shik-Shik 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 Marh Valone. I fashioned him, and through him Valona's Horde, to be a weapon to strike down Morlock should he pass 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 Shik-Shik is doing better than I had imagined.”

  I turned to look at the duel. Shik-Shik 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. Shik-Shik was lying on his side, gasping through a red-bubbling 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 passed. “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.

  “We'd better get out of here,” I said to Morlock. “The old man was muttering about reinforcements. What is his name, anyway?”

  “Merlin Ambrosius.”

  “Is he really your father?”

  “My ruthen father.”

  “Are you really trying to kill his wife?”

  “No, but I am setting about something that will probably result in her death.”

  “I don't see the difference.”

  “Neither does he.”

  We left the little marketplace and headed toward Whisper Street.

  “Isn't this the route he'll expect us to take?” I asked.

  “Yes. Unfortunately, that's because it's the only route we can take. We have to get back across the river.”

  “What about his reinforcements?”

  “We have some, too.”

  The day, already getting cold and dark, suddenly got a lot colder. “What in the ground are you talking about?”

  Then I saw Roble walking toward us up the crowded street. He was carrying a couple of things in his arms.

  As I caught sight of him, a tall thin man dressed in red velvet stepped out of the shadows. He tapped Roble on the chest and said something.

  “Not another stupid duel,” I muttered.

  Morlock sped up and I followed him.

  “I…I knew a fellow with a brown face once,” Red-Velvet-Pants was saying. “He…he was a foincher. You heard me. I think…I think you may—may be a foincher. Also. I mean, as far as I know, you may be.”

  Roble was taking this in with equal amounts of amusement and pity.

  “If you're not a foincher, you ought to fight me and prove it,” Velvet-pants was explaining carefully. “And if you are a foincher, I should fight you. Would you like me to…to elucidate further, or may we…that is—”

  Morlock grabbed Velvet-Pants by the back of his neck. The long, terribly strong fingers of the maker's left hand wrapped nearly all the way around Master Velvet-Pants's skinny throat.

  “Drop your sword belt or I'll break your neck,” said Morlock.

  “You—can't,” rasped the startled yet velvety one though his constricted throat. “Mere assassin. Ation. Lose gradient!”

  “Me and my partner don't care about gradient,” Roble told him kindly. “But we are in a hurry, and we will have to kill you if you don't get out of our way. So drop your sword belt and get lost, hey?”

  Velvet-Pants thought about it for a second, then undid his sword belt and let it fall clatte
ring to the ground. Morlock let him go. Velvet-Pants gave a resentful glance over his shoulder. His eyes widened as he seemed to recognize Morlock. (From his painting in the Justiciar's House maybe. No, I have no idea why there was a painting of him there.) He scuttled off.

  “Thanks,” said Roble. He handed Morlock one of the things in his arms: a sword belt with a sword grip protruding from it: his real sword, or so I hoped.

  “Thanks,” said Morlock, and slung the belt across his shoulders.

  Roble wordlessly handed Morlock a blue-glazed jar, twin to the one Merlin had smashed in the portico. Morlock received it, nodded.

  That's what those guys call a conversation.

  Grinning, my brother handed me the other thing he'd been carrying: a quarterstaff. “Your usual, I believe.”

  It was true I was pretty handy with any sort of blunt instrument: you had to be, among the Bargainers. But this was practically the only time Roble had come close to mentioning my life with them in the months we'd been travelling together. It was sort of a warm family moment, in a weird way—with, you know, weaponry.

  “Thanks,” I said. And I have to admit, in a town full of bloodthirsty idiots, it did feel good to have the quarterstaff in my hands. Technically, this put me in the ranks of those who could be challenged, but only by other bravoes (or bravas) who were carrying staves, which they mostly didn't.

  The warmth vanished when I saw my daughter's face in the crowd ahead.

  “Trouble behind you,” she sang out. “Oh, hurry up!”

  I'd have hit Morlock with the stave as hard as I could if I didn't think he was as necessary to get my children out of this mess as he had been instrumental to getting them into it. I think that was the moment I really made my decision about the old man and his crooked coin, although I only became aware of it later.

  Glancing back as we ran, I saw there was a body of armed men moving up the street from the Camlann Market. They didn't look like soldiers, but they did look like trouble. We caught up with Fasra and she said, “The way is still clear to Thend's station. He's halfway to Whisper Street. If that's still where we are going.”

  “Have to,” Morlock said.

  We ran up the road, ignoring catcalls and challenges. We picked up Thend as we went. Thank the Strange Gods: he was not carrying a visible weapon. He said as he jogged alongside us, “The way is still clear back to Whisper Street. You are being followed, though.”

  “That's ‘we are,’ honey,” I pointed out to him, and he grinned. Like it was a holiday. Well, it was better than moping, under the circumstances.

  Bann was waiting for us by the Whisper Street gate. He also was not visibly armed, but in his arms he carried an apparently heavy object under a cloak.

  His face was sweaty and marked with worry. “The gate guards say they won't let this through,” he said. “They say this looks like a weapon and weapons aren't allowed.”

  “You didn't ask them right,” Roble said reassuringly, pulling out a fistful of gold coins.

  We stepped as a group through the outer gate. One of the guards (toll-takers, really) looked up, saw Bann, started to say, “I told you…,” and stopped abruptly. He'd seen the gold in Roble's hands.

  “We really, truly, urgently need to get across Whisper Street,” Fasra said sweetly. “We promise not to hurt anyone. Unless you get in our way.”

  The guards looked at the gold, looked at our faces, took the money, and waved us through.

  “This is just like Sarkunden,” Fasra said as we stepped into Whisper Street. She disappeared. “Except everyone is a Sandboy,” her disembodied voice added.

  “Grab hands or something,” I said. “No one gets lost.”

  “No need,” Morlock said. “Go south, past the dancers. Hurry.”

  I didn't like anyone overriding me when I gave my kids an order, but we were in the middle of a situation, so I had to roll with it.

  We shouldered and elbowed our way through the sightless crowd of Whisper Street. It was almost dark, but the street was dense with people whispering about the things they had to say when they thought no one was looking.

  There were more of the dancers, as Morlock called them, than ever; they blocked almost the whole street, the scratching sound of their many feet louder than all but the nearest voices. We had to force our way through them one by one. I heard Fasra gasping, and somebody retched.

  They didn't just smell bad. They smelled…dead. I held my breath and tried to stay close to the others. Eventually we seemed to be on the other side of them; ahead of me I could hear a fervent conversation amongst the Overripe Fruit Society. I wanted to tell Fasra to cover her ears. It's true she had worked (as a maid—nothing else) in the village whorehouse. But Whisper Street was full of people creepier than you would meet in the average brothel.

  “Bann,” said Morlock's voice.

  “Here,” said my son's.

  “Have you got a firemaker?”

  “Yes.”

  “Set it off.”

  There was a thumping sound as Bann set down the thing he was carrying, and I heard the cloak being cast aside. I saw the flame my son suddenly held in his hand, although I couldn't see the hand.

  Then there was a stream of sparks and a deep vibrating sound, like a tuning fork as big as a house. The stream of sparks became a pillar of fire stretching up toward the dark blue sky. Then, when it was twenty or thirty feet above us, it burst.

  Glowing dust showered down from whatever-it-was, all along the length of Whisper Street. The dust didn't seem to be affected by the invisibility spell on the Street, so that whatever it fell on suddenly became visible, a ghostly glowing shadow of itself.

  Chaos erupted. People did not come to Whisper Street to see and be seen. Many of them had quietly slipped off their clothes, the better to conduct their conversations, and these people in particular panicked. A man and a woman in the Overripe Fruit Society suddenly realized they were married, and the sound of their happy reunion rose in fell shrieks above the cries of dismay that filled the once-whispering street.

  I saw dusty simulacra of my children and brother standing nearby, and a dusty glowing statue of Morlock, holding a jar in his hands.

  “Do you hear me?” he was saying. “Do you see me?”

  The dancers were still dancing, unbemused by their sudden visibility. They were dressed in their funeral finest, but their flesh was wearing away; for many of them it was already in rags, or oozing out through the seams of their shrouds. But at the sound of Morlock's voice they turned and looked at him. (I say looked, even though many of their eyes were gone, the empty sockets gaping like tiny dark mouths.)

  “Nimue Viviana,” said Morlock. “Listen to me. I am Morlock Ambrosius. I can take you back to yourself. I can give you rest. Follow me.”

  The still dancers stood still a moment longer. Then they took a step toward Morlock.

  Beyond them I saw the dusty glowing shapes of many armed men.

  “Morlock,” I said.

  “Now!” he cried. “Follow me!” He turned and ran. They followed, their dead feet resounding like thunder along the street.

  “I'm a step or two ahead of you, I think,” I said.

  “Stay that way,” he said. “Go down to the Aresion Gate and take the bridge across the river. If I fall behind, don't wait for me.”

  “Who's Nimue Viviana?” I asked.

  “My mother.”

  “Oh. I thought she was the crazy lady in the jar.”

  “She is.”

  “What…?”

  “Merlin split her in three parts to try to keep her from dying. Part of her is in the jar. Part is possessing these corpses. Part is elsewhere.”

  “The antideath spell.”

  Morlock's glowing dusty face turned to me as he ran and nodded. “Did she tell you of that? Good.”

  “So you'll break the antideath spell?”

  “If I can.”

  “And she'll die?”

  “Probably.”

  “So he was
n't lying.”

  “Merlin?” Morlock shrugged as he ran. “Don't count on that. He lies when it suits him.”

  “But not this time.”

  “Seems not.”

  The disorderly troop of corpses that followed us—followed Morlock, more precisely—shoved people out of their way and trampled them if they would not go. There were screams of pain and anger behind us, screams of fear before us, on every side the despairing shrieks of those who had tried to feed some obsession of Whisper Street and hide it from the world. For some reason it all reminded me very much of life as a Bargainer. Maybe it was the night work, or the corpses.

  We finally reached the Aresion Gate and ran through it, stampeding the panicky toll-takers before us. The glow of the dust faded in the ordinary unwhispering street; in the red irregular light from house windows and the rare street-lamps, we all looked as if we had just come out of a hay barn or an attic.

  Many of those windows slammed shut as he passed. By now we constituted a full-fledged riot, and as we ran through the dark streets of western Aflraun, already filling with evening mist from the river, I heard the whistles and horns of the night guard being summoned. There were no guards on Aflraunside of the bridge, though, so we thundered past and across the foggy river.

  Most of us did, anyway. The others were almost on the far side when I turned and saw that Morlock had slowed almost to a halt in the middle of the bridge.

  “Morlock, come on!” I shouted. A bunch of people were entering the bridge from Aflraunside. Some wore uniforms; some didn't. I didn't want words with any of them. The shuffling corpses formed a pretty effective traffic block, even for each other, but I supposed the soldiers could force their way through if they really wanted to.

  But now Morlock absolutely stopped, and the rout of corpses stopped, too, staring at him and his blue jar.

  A guard from Narkundenside came up beside me. “You can't bring that many zombies into the city,” he said. “I don't care what paper you've got on them.”

  “I don't think they're zombies,” I said.

  “What are they then?”

  “Arrrgh!” If a harthrang was a demon possessing a corpse, what was one-third of an old lady possessing a herd of corpses? Possibly those-who-know have a technical term for it, but I didn't and don't know it.