Morlock rode even more awkwardly that Earno did, and that almost made the old summoner smile. When he saw Morlock he was always reminded simultaneously of the proudest and most shameful times in his life, and somehow that made him almost smile as well. He didn’t feel much of anything these days; he had borne the burden of a great secret so long he could hardly feel it, or anything, anymore. But it was a comfort to remember that he had once felt so intensely; it gave him hope he would do so again. The thought of sharing his secret, sharing the burden, was also a relief.

They were smiling at him, raising their left hands in greeting. He raised his own in response, and now he did smile. He urged the gray palfrey forward and it stepped down into the middle of the stream and stopped, the water foaming below the horse’s knees.

Something was wrong. Morlock and Aloê were looking at him, eyes wide with shock. There was a warmth, a wetness running down his neck and chest, staining his white tunic red, mingling with the coarse gray hair of the horse’s mane. He heard himself gulp air, although his mouth was closed. He reached up to feel the rough, blood-spewing, lipless mouth that gaped in his throat.

Then he fell from the horse’s back into the clear, cool water.

At last, in the last moment, it returned, that strange bittersweetness, the tang of life, of really feeling and being. The bright, crystalline color of the mountain stream, the taste of his own blood in his mouth. He was alive again, wholly alive. Then, on the fourth day after he was murdered, Earno died.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Last Station

Fleeing from a nightmare, Morlock awoke entangled in the limbs of his glorious, darkly golden wife. He had, for one moment, the cruel comfort of believing that all of it was a nightmare: the dying sun, the cruel war with the Khnauronts, the deaths of so many of his friends, the dreadful murder of Earno.

But, as he lay still to avoid waking Aloê, he looked out the window at the cool silver-blue sky of spring and sorted the darkness of his dream from the darkness in the waking world. They were not dissimilar. He hoped that didn’t mean they were true dreams.

Aloê was dreaming, too, and from the expression on her sleeping face the dreams were as unpleasant as his. He was moved to wake her when she whispered, “Don’t go! You’ll never come back! You’ll never come back!”

He wondered if she were in rapture, adrift in the chill winds from the future. “I have gone before,” he said quietly, “and I always came back.”

“This is different,” she sighed. She seemed to stop breathing entirely and he was moved to alarm. But before he could act, she opened her golden eyes and looked straight into his.

“Bad dream?” he asked.

“‘Good morning, beloved,’” is the usual greeting,” she remarked, “but I suppose when a couple is entering their second century of marriage—”

“Good morning, beloved. Did you have a bad dream?”

“Yes, sweetheart. And you, too?”

“Yes.”

“Yours first.”

“Can’t remember much. My leg hurt. I was sick and—I was sick or something—”

“Don’t get coy on me now, Vocate.”

“I was vomiting. It was dark and . . . and you weren’t there. You were never going to be there.”

She was silent for a long time. “In mine,” she said, “I saw you going away in the dark. The further you went, the older you got. You were all twisted and horrible. Yes! Yes! Even more than you are now! I couldn’t stop you. I don’t know why.”

“In the dream, were you all right?”

“What do you mean? Alive, healthy, or what?”

“All that.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, opened them. “Yes, I think so. I was sorry to lose you, but I was alive.”

He sighed in relief.

She looked at him quizzically. “Is my death the worst thing you can imagine?”

“The very worst.”

She smiled gently and said, “Beloved.” But he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t say, I feel the same way, because he knew she didn’t. She did say, finally, “We’ve lost so much. We mustn’t lose each other.”

He held her close. They lay together in silence for a while until they heard Deor shouting somewhere in the stairway, “I don’t suppose anyone will want to GET SOME BREAKFAST BEFORE THEY GO TO STATION?”

The hardy Westhold steeds that they had ridden south were still enjoying the meager comforts of Tower Ambrose’s stables, but they decided to walk to Station rather than ride there. Deor accompanied them, as their thain-attendant, but he would not be allowed to speak at Station: that was a right for full members of the Graith, which Deor never intended to be.

Aloê and Morlock had broached the subject to him only last night. There were vacancies among the vocates, after the defeat of the Khnauronts, and no one among the thains was as well-respected as Deor. But he laughed at their offer of promotion. “Look, harvenen,” he said. “I am here, at the behest of the Elder of Theorn clan, to serve your interests and keep out of his beard (may it never grow thin). How could I do either of those things as a vocate? No, shut your faces. When the time comes that I can no longer be a Guardian, I will go home and raise children under Thrymhaiam, as God Creator intended.”

The day was not warm, although summer was approaching. No one felt like discussing the weather, though, so they walked mostly in silence down the winding elm-lined streets until they ran into Vocate Jordel and his brother Baran, accompanied by a gray-caped cloud of thains. No silence could long withstand Jordel’s relentless assault and they were soon talking about everything under the sun, except the state of the sun.

Where the River Road joined Shortmarket Street, they came across a company of thains armed with long spears. At their head strode bitter white Vocate Noreê. In the midst walked a dirty ragged figure, manacles on his arms and legs.

Morlock felt, and felt strongly, that anger was a weakness. But he felt its red fire infecting his eyes. He stepped in front of the troupe and said to Noreê, “Who is this?”

Stiffly she replied, “The invader I captured at Big Rock. He is a stranger in the land and here for no good purpose.”

“How do you know?”

“I know things you will never understand!”

“Everybody does. Everybody knows something that someone else does not, and never will.” He turned away from her and said to the thain nearest him, “Stand aside.”

He was prepared to draw Tyrfing and fight if need be, but there was no need. Noreê was shouting behind him, and the hapless thain glanced in terror back and forth between Noreê and Morlock. Morlock simply waited, and in the end the thain stood aside.

“Stranger,” he said to the chained man, “what’s your name?”

“Kelat,” said the stranger vaguely. “I think. I think that’s part of it, anyway.”

“You must go before the Graith and account for yourself.”

“So the vocate tells me. I will, if I can.”

“My name is Morlock.”

“I’ve heard that name, I think.”

“Eh. Show me those.” Morlock pointed at the manacles.

Kelat lifted his arms and Morlock looked keenly at the fastenings. It would be easy enough to pick the locks, but. . . . He took the locks on each of the manacles between thumb and forefinger and twisted them until they broke.

“You may be king in the North,” Noreê shouted behind him, “but you are not king here!”

Morlock ignored her blasphemy. He crouched down and broke the locks on Kelat’s legs as well. As he rose to his feet, Kelat shook off his chains and said, “Thanks.”

“It’s nothing,” Morlock replied. “Jordel,” he said, over his lower shoulder, “where is the nearest bathhouse? Zelion’s isn’t it?”

“How would I know? Why ask me?”