The Wide World's End (4 page)

It was as bad as she had feared, and not so bad.

The Gray Tower stood on a bluff high over the Gap of Lone. It had done so, anyway. Now it was no more than a broken, blackened tooth against the bright winter sky. Aloê, climbing the path to what had been the entrance, passed heaps of discarded weapons, campfires ringed with shattered bones, shattered blue stones from the fallen tower.

There were no bodies.

But when Aloê came to the base of the broken tower she was greeted by a friendly face: Thea's. She was digging a trench around the tower's base. When she saw Aloê approaching she waved her shovel in greeting.

“How was your vacation, Guardian?” Thea called out when they were close enough for speech.

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“Were you here for . . . ?” Aloê waved at the ruined tower and its environs.

“No, thank God Sustainer. Banyon Fourthstone was here, though. Seems to be dead now, along with everyone else.”

“How'd you hear about it?”

“The boy on duty in the Maze managed to ring the warning bell before the invaders got him. Banyon sent a brief report through the message sock before he led the thains out to die.”

“Uselessly?”

“Depends. They must have taken some of the invaders with them.”

“And afterwards he provided the invaders with a hearty meal.”

“Thank God Avenger you said that. But I've been thinking it.”

Aloê tried to put herself in Banyon's place. She had never liked or respected him much; the Graith had voted him in out of respect for Lernaion, whose great-nephew he was, and Aloê thought that kind of thing was always a mistake. But what could have driven him to lead all his thains against what must have been a superior force? Maybe he couldn't stand the thought of staying safe in the Gray Tower while the Guarded suffered. Maybe that was it:
Maintain the Guard!
and all that. It covered a multitude of sins. But it didn't cover a failure of this magnitude.

“How'd you hear about it?” Thea asked, and then Aloê had to tell her about the grisly soupfest at the Raenli homestead.

“So they went up the Whitewell?” Thea asked. “And Morlock went after them alone? That's some kind of man you've got.”

If I've got him, why isn't he here?
Aloê thought peevishly, but she managed to avoid saying it aloud. They all had their jobs to do.

“Earno will want to know about this,” Thea continued. “He and Noreê are around here someplace.”

“What is it that you're doing?”

“They broke through the Wards somehow. The Maze in the Gap of Lone is gone entirely.”

“God Avenger.”

“And all the other gods, too. The Wards hereabout are anchored at the base of the Gray Tower, so I'm seeing what's left of them. Want to help?”

“No. But I'll be back after I've seen Earno.”

Earno was the Summoner of the Outer Lands—the highest-ranking Guardian, except for his two peers, the Summoners Bleys and Lernaion. Aloê found him shoveling dirt into a pit. Noreê was shoveling alongside him, wearing the red cloak that marked her as a vocate, and quite a few gray-caped thains were also flinging dirt. Apparently the Graith of Guardians had become a company of ditch diggers.

“A dark, cold day, Guardians,” she greeted them all.

Earno nodded, but did not stop throwing dirt. Aloê was about to ask what they were doing when she realized this must be a mass grave for the remains of the people who had died here. She sighed. There was no shovel that wasn't being used so she began throwing double handfuls of dirt from the heap into the pit.

Before they were done, Thea had come to join them, dragging her cloak behind her and carrying her shovel. Aloê took the shovel and finished the burial while Noreê and Thea stood conferring over the contents of her cloak.

When the pit was full, Earno threw down his shovel and turned away. Apparently any ceremony, if there even was one, preceded the burial. Aloê stayed to say a few quiet words to the departed spirits of the dead Guardians. She wasn't sure that it did any good, even for her, but she had caught the habit of talking to ghosts from Morlock's dwarvish kin.

When she lifted her head she saw the thains were making fires and setting up shelters. Earno was assisting them. Noreê and Thea were still standing together talking. Aloê joined them.

Thea's cloak contained a set of bluestone wedges shot through with crystal: the anchors for the Wards on this side of the Maze.

“What's wrong with them?” asked Aloê.

“Nothing, in a way,” Noreê replied. “They are structurally sound. But they bear no more talic imprint than any other piece of stone—less than some. I'll look at the other anchors, but I expect to find the same.”

Aloê nodded. It had to be something like this, of course. The Wards were not a physical barrier, in the ordinary sense. They were a vast talic web that made it difficult, not impossible, for a conscious entity to decide to enter the Wardlands—or to execute a decision already made. A skilled seer or a sufficiently determined individual could make it through the Wards. But in the Gap of Lone a shifting, multifarious set of Wards were (or had been) in place that would allow anyone to enter—but only by taking a long and constantly shifting path over the plain. If the horde of cannibals had walked in with no warning, either they were all seers of a very high order or the Maze must have been completely suppressed somehow. The question was . . .

“How?” Aloê asked Noreê.

The white-haired seer shook her head. “I don't know. I'll stay here and see what I can do about it. If the Wards can be broken beyond repair . . . the Guard is not maintained.”

“Maintain the Guard!” whispered Thea through pale lips.

Noreê said, “I think you two should go north after the cannibals. Take as many of the thains as you can pry loose from Earno. We must save as many as we can of the Guarded.”

Aloê met Thea's bright, brown eyes, and they both nodded.

“A good plan,” said Aloê. “We'll meet you back here when the battle is done.”

“I hope you will,” said the cold, white woman. “Go as soon as you can, if you would be guided by me. I fear our world is ending, but we must fight as long as we can. . . .”

On the first night of the month of Rain (ill-named in that bitterly cold year), deep in the southern marches of the Whitethorn Mountains, Sharvetr Ûlkhyn was shaken out of his nest by an insistent knabe.

Sharvetr had been the Longtooth of Graytown for five years now, and he had almost grown to like the job. But he did not like it—he would
never
like it when he was awakened in the middle of the night to deal with some terrible crisis. A cow that had failed to return to its pen, or the terrible discovery of a horde of cookies secreted by some ill-informed youngling.

So he snarled, “What is it?” at the knabe who came to wake him, and be damned to kithness.

The knabe, a female named Vyvlidh, said curtly, “Morlock's here. He says there's trouble.”

“Thanks, kithling. Where's my kilt?”

“You're wearing it.”

Sharvetr rolled out of his nest and strode away to the guest hall. Morlock was sitting there, drinking wine from the guesting cup. He set it by and stood as the Longtooth entered.

“Longtooth Sharvetr. I come with bad news, I'm afraid.”

“Morlock, my oldest friend: you are welcome here with whatever news you choose to bring, or none. Sit. Drink your wine. We'll talk it out.”

Morlock was an old friend to everyone in Graytown. He was one of the few who had argued against killing the mandrakes, born by the hundreds in the Year of Fire, hatching out of the teeth of slain dragons.

The mandrakes had been planted carefully in an empty valley of the North and tended like plants. When their minds awoke they were taken and taught the New Way of Theornn, gently but urgently, as if their lives depended on it.

Which they did. The Graith of Guardians was ruthless when it came to threats, or even potential threats. If the mandrakes could not resist the dragon-change, they were too dangerous to live in the Wardlands.

But the New Way blossomed in the hearts of the Gray Folk: the words of patience, hospitality, generosity, loyalty. Most resisted the dragon-change, and they took on themselves the honor and burden of destroying or exiling the occasional throwback.

Now Morlock sat on the couch and Sharvetr sat beside him and listened to his troubles.

“Khnauronts, are they?” Sharvetr said at last. It was the word used in Dwarvish of a being that eats the flesh of those that think and speak—often, but not exclusively, used of dragons. “They took the wrong turn in the Whitethorns, then. I doubt they would relish a bite of one of the Gray Folk, eh,
ruthen
-Morlock?” The Gray Folk, like Morlock and his Ambrosial kin, had blood that burned in open air.

“It's true,” Morlock agreed. “But there are the folk of Ranga and its colonies—of Haukrull Vale—the Silent Folk in Kwelmgrind Vale—”

“Say no more,” Sharvetr stopped him. “We are of one blood,
harven coruthen
, with all the people of the North. They could have killed us in the tooth, yet they let us live and taught us the New Way, so that we could be people and not mindless greedy animals. We will do what we can do to help. I take it kindly that you have come to us first. Unless you have already . . . ?”

“No, I go next to Thrymhaiam, and then to the Silent Folk. I hope I'm not too late.”

“Then send a message through us to Thrymhaiam. You go to the Silent Folk. Your friend Naevros syr Tol is here—”

“He is?”

“He is, although he does not say why.”

“Can we go to him, Longtooth? There's no time to lose.”

“We can, but unless I am mistaken, here he comes to us.”

Naevros burst into the greeting room and fell shouting on Morlock and embraced him. In the century or so that Morlock had known Naevros he had never seen him do something like that; he was embarrassed and honored and confused. He gently pounded Naevros on the shoulderblades with his fists.

“Now we're talking!” Naevros said, letting go of Morlock at last. “You know of the invasion, of course?”

Morlock told him what they had seen at Raenli farmstead.

“I was visiting with Illion's people at Three Hills when the news came to us, via message sock,” Naevros explained. “The Graith sent me to rally the peoples of Northhold. Because half a millennium ago I was born in a fishers' cottage on the Broken Coast. Ridiculous. But you were on the road and no one could reach you. My apologies, Longtooth,” he said, turning to the elected leader of the Gray Folk. “I should have told you my news when I arrived, but I was not sure what to ask—what I should ask—I—”

“You are not our blood,
harven ruthenclef
, as Morlocktheorn is,” Sharvetr said with steel-cold civility.

“Yes. Exactly.”

“
Ruthen
Sharvetr,” said Morlock quietly.

“I understand,
ruthen
. He does not know our ways and no offense is meant.”

Naevros raised his eyebrows at the word
offense
and would have spoken, but Sharvetr raised a long seven-jointed gray finger.

“Though you are not
ruthen
, I choose you as
harven
. We are of one blood, you and I. Ask what you would of me, kinsman, for blood has no price.”

Naevros' eyes crossed momentarily at the thought of being blood-kin to a mandrake. But his practiced suavity soon came to his aid, and he said, “The Gray Folk chose their Longtooth wisely. I beg pardon for any offense, and swear kith with you and your folk on any terms you choose.”

“There is no oath. Say or say not.”

“I say it, then, and say too that you honor me too much.”

“You are my
ruthen
's friend. That is already much. We'll speak no more of honor, but of this danger in the land.”

Morlock understood, as Naevros apparently did not, how angry Sharvetr was; many found the long-snouted, gray-scaled faces of the mandrakes hard to read.

“Have you told him, Longtooth, about the banefires?” asked Naevros.

“I have not.”

“The night is deep and clear. Shall we go look?”

They went, with Naevros and Sharvetr refusing explanations until Morlock had seen what they thought he should see.

Morlock was deeply concerned. The banefires had been set on the gravehills in the Northhold a thousand years before. They were magical prisons for the Corain, the undead sorcerer-kings of the Coranians. While the banefires burned, the dead Corain could no longer wander the land by night and afflict it, stealing bodies and lives. That was ominously like the Khnauronts.

Naevros led the way through the tunnel-like corridors of Sharvetr's house to a doorway that faced north and west.

The sky above was dense with stars. The major moons, Chariot and Horseman, stood high and bright above the ragged horizon to the west.