This Crooked Way (12 page)

“Uh-huh. Three phases?” I was getting nervous again. Walking through woods thick with Bargainers, with the Enemy lurking unseen, was bad enough; I didn't like adding a crazy Coranian to the mix.

He shrugged his wry shoulders and said, “Hear me out and decide if I'm crazy. There are matter and spirit, yes? The things we see and feel and touch, and the minds that lie behind them.”

“All right. Say there are.”

“But how does dead matter impinge on a living mind? How does a living mind make dead matter respond?”

“You tell me.”

“Through the middle phase: tal. Tal is the medium through which the spirit realm takes action in the world of matter and the medium through which matter affects the spirit.”

“So ghosts—”

“Not just ghosts. People. Squirrels. Dogs. Bugs. Any entity that can take volitional action in the material world is a fusion of three bodies: material, talic, and spiritual. Physical death occurs when tal is no longer able to unite matter and spirit. In rapture I can ascend from material perception to talic perception, with at least a glimpse of the spiritual realm beyond.”

“Hm. Not my line of work.”

He laughed, surprising me. “Yes it is.” He waved his hand at the road. “You collect dead bodies—”

“When someone doesn't run off with my horse.”

“—and people in the woods. Why?”

“So that the Enemy won't eat them. What's good for him is bad for us.”

“What do you suppose the Enemy eats?”

“You're telling me you know?”

“I do know. I sensed its specific hunger when I was in rapture. It feeds on tal. The tal of living beings, men and women, when it can. A living consciousness is haloed in tal. But the dead still possess tal, which will fade over time, like the heat of a dead body.”

“And it can live on this?”

“Yes. It would have some harmful effects, over time, but a person with certain skills could prolong his life indefinitely by absorbing the tal of others. It's the sort of magic Coranians have always been good at.”

Coranians. He said it like it didn't include him. That set me back. He was pale skinned, like a Coranian himself; he spoke Coranian like it was his native language. “Aren't you a Coranian?” I asked. “You speak the language.”

“I share the language,” he said, not as if he were angry or embarrassed, just stating a fact. “But my people didn't call it Coranian. You must know some Coranians yourself: you speak the language well.”

“They pretty much run Four Castles. The Four Barons and the gentry are all white-sk—Coranians.”

“Hm.”

“They live a long time,” I added. “Three hundred years, or so some of them claim.”

“Hm.”

“You don't think—?” I began.

The Silent Word hit me again, like before but worse. It was like being buried in a bright avalanche of silence. I found myself sprawled on the ground and got up shaking my head.

“Look, I was just asking,” I said stiffly. “You didn't have to pound my head with your magic word.”

But Morlock was climbing to his feet as well. “I didn't,” he said, a little unsteadily. “I think—”

It struck again, a dark inhuman voice shouting the silent word through the trees.

We rose from the ground a while later and looked at each other. Morlock dropped his backpack on the ground and began to paw through it frantically. We both lost consciousness several times as the voice in the woods shouted the Silent Word at us. But finally, as I watched him with a certain disinterest—I was getting a little groggy; it was like taking repeated punches to the head—he pulled something shiny out of the pack and put it to his lips.

It was a pennywhistle or a pipe or some other kind of cut-rate flute. He began to play a little tune on it just as the Silent Word rang again out of the woods.

I staggered a little but didn't fall. There was some sort of magic in the pipe's music that masked the stunning force of the Silent Word.

Using his right hand to finger the pipe as he continued to play, he reached down and slid one strap of his pack over his left shoulder. Then he switched hands and put the strap over his right shoulder.

“Your pack's open,” I said. “I'll—”

He paused playing for a moment and said, “Have to get moving. Rats.”

This last bit meant less than a Bargainer's promise to me, but I could see how it was a good idea to get moving. We walked westward, toward Caroc town.

Presently, I got to thinking, though. The pipe made magical music—what was the magic for? Just to cover up the magic of the Silent Word? I didn't think so.
Rats
, Morlock had said. It couldn't really be to—

I turned around and walked backward, keeping up with Morlock step for step. He was right: it would have been a bad idea to stop and tie up his pack while the music was playing. Because it was drawing rats out of the wood.

There were hundreds already, creeping along behind us—the road was dark with them. I looked at Morlock; he met my eye and shrugged without pausing the music.

I swung around and walked forward. Obviously, there was no point in speaking—and, frankly, I was glad of that.

Sure, I was grateful that his magic pipe was keeping me from going unconscious every other moment. I was grateful his magic word had saved me from the Bargainers. He had obviously thought it safe to use, as the Bargainers would no more be able to hear the word or remember it than I had. It would affect any man or woman that way, no doubt.

But the Whisperer in the Woods, the Boneless One, was not a man or a woman.
It
had heard the Silent Word and was learning how to use it. If it learned how to use it against townfolk without striking the Bargainers as well, even the walls of town and castle wouldn't protect us: walls mean nothing if there is no one standing on guard behind them. The long war between the Castles and the Enemy might be over at last, thanks to Morlock. And me.

I should have left him to the Bargainers
, I thought over and over again as we trudged toward Caroc. That was the bitterest pill of all, because it meant, in spite of everything, that Liskin had been right.

Dawn came about an hour before we reached the edge of Caroc Town. I told Morlock he could stop playing—the Enemy was never active during the day. He blew a final shrieking blast on the pipe, very unlike the tripping persuasive music that had drawn the rats, and they fled in all directions.

I didn't have my hillconch with me—it was hooked to my horse's saddle—but I shouted the ritual restoring law to the road and the woods. Morlock listened with interest as he stored his pipe in an odd pocket in one of his sleeves and tied up his pack. Then we walked on to the town.

I was not surprised to learn, when we reached Caroc, that I had been horribly killed by Bargainers in the woods and Liskin, though striving valiantly to save me, had been forced to flee with my horse, for the safety of the Four Castles and, indeed, all humankind.

The sad news reached me through Besk, who was waiting for me at the east edge of town with a mug of beer and a piece of cheese. While I ate the cheese and drank the beer (I offered Morlock the first shot at both; he waved them away, but it looked to me like he really wanted the beer), Besk told us about how Liskin rode into the town before dawn reporting the terrible things he had seen.

A small crowd had gathered around by this time, enjoying the prospect of a man hearing about his own death. I could have said a lot of things, but what I did say was, “That Bargaining little weasel. Besk, Morlock. Morlock, Besk.”

Besk's pale brown face went blank and then, for the first time, he looked straight at the stray I had recovered from the lawless woods.

“Morlock Ambrosius?” Besk asked.

Morlock shrugged his crooked shoulders.

Besk seemed to accept this as an answer; he nodded solemnly and said, “As a maker of sorts, I honor you, of course. As a Coranian of sorts, I've been taught to hate you. But I could never take that stuff as seriously as I should, I'm afraid. You'd better leave him at my place, Roble, before you go to report. The Barons won't treat him well.”

“Can't,” I said flatly. I was a little surprised that Besk had heard of Morlock, but not very: Coranians are supposed to get more news from the wide world than the rest of us, and what they get they share at their Mysteries. (Besk had the wrong ancestors to ever be a full Initiate of one of the Inner Circles. But he, unlike me, had some of the right ancestors, so he could be a member of one of the Outer Circles.) I didn't know what Morlock had done to get on the wrong side of the Coranians or when he had done it; frankly, I didn't care. Something more important than him or me had come up, and now was not the time to hand in a false or, should I say,
Liskinized
, report. I'd never cared for the Baron of Caroc (who struck me as a stiff), but he needed to hear the truth from me now, including whatever Morlock could tell him about the Silent Words.

To my surprise, Morlock agreed. I thanked Besk for the breakfast (or is it supper when you've been awake all night?), left him among the crowd, and trudged toward the castle.

“Besk is a good man,” I said, after we'd walked awhile in silence.

“He seems so,” Morlock replied. “But…”

“But what?”

“There was something a little strange about him.”

I should have been offended, but I knew what he meant. I shrugged and we went on without speaking.

The audience hall of the Baron of Caroc was full of rubberneckers and armed guards when I ushered Morlock in. The atmosphere was festive but unpleasant. It was like some creepy Coranian religious holiday (although there were almost as many brown faces as white ones in the audience hall).

I conducted Morlock up the hall to the throne where the Baron sat, ramrod straight.

“Sir,” I said, a little embarrassed (I don't usually have to run my mouth with so many people listening), “I bring you news from the woods. And—”

“I know about your prisoner, Liskin,” the Baron said. “Don't worry: you'll have your reward.”

“The name's
Roble,”
I snapped, my embarrassment vanishing in annoyance. (It was just like Liskin to cop the credit for my “prisoner,” after abandoning us both in the woods.) “Someone's been feeding you false reports. Sir. And I don't know what you guys have against Morlock, here, but there's something more important going on in the woods.”

“Nothing is more important than the capture of one of our enemies from the old time,” the Baron said gloatingly. “But I suppose you will deny your identity, enemy?” he said, speaking directly to Morlock.

Morlock shrugged indifferently, much as he had when Besk asked his name.
From the old time:
how old was Morlock? Did they really hate him personally, or was it someone he was descended from?

“Why is he still armed?” the Baron demanded. “You—Riskin—Loble—whatever your name is. Take his sword. Take his backpack. Take anything he has on his person.”

“Including his tin whistle?” I said sarcastically, but my heart was falling. I didn't like where this was going. The Baron had goons to lock people up and search them; that's not what the Riders are for, and I was annoyed the Baron was talking to me like one of his jailors. But I couldn't just stand here while they made plans to carve Morlock up, either. He'd saved my life when he could have let me die.

I didn't figure I owed any loyalty to the Baron. The people who lived in Four Castles came first, I figured, especially the people I cared about, then people I owed something to (like Morlock). The Baron of Caroc wasn't on either list.

No, what bothered me was what would happen when I refused. He'd just call in his goons and I might end up in a cell right next to Morlock. That wouldn't do anyone any good. But I didn't like the idea of knuckling under, either.

Just when the situation was bad, Morlock made it worse by drawing his sword. A gasp went around the crowded audience chamber.

It's a crime to draw a weapon in the presence of any of the Barons, of course, except in their defense. But that wasn't what shocked the crowd; at least I don't think so. It was the blade itself. They were all staring at it with their mouths open.

I admit it was weird. I hadn't had a chance to look at the blade before, when Morlock was fighting the Bargainers. The blade was like a long pointed slab of black basalt with veins of white crystal running through it. It seemed as if the white parts began to move, like white flames flickering against a black background. Morlock almost seemed to flicker a little bit, too, and his gray eyes actually seemed to glow. He closed his eyes and I could see the light of his irises shining eerily through the thin skin of his eyelids. His movements were sluggish, almost sleepy.

It reminded me of how he had been when I first saw him. He was going into the rapture state, I suddenly realized. Why?

…the sort of magic Coranians have always been good at…
he'd said, right before the Silent Word struck us both down. He'd meant the kind of magic that preserved physical life by devouring someone else's…no, their tal. It was just what the Enemy did. I'd wondered then if the Enemy might once have been a Coranian, though I didn't have a chance to ask the question.