“After the Battle of Tunglskin, Lernaion said to Earno, ‘They will make that crooked man king,’ or something like that. Earno must have decided to warn Morlock about it. This doesn’t tell us anything that I didn’t already know.”

“I didn’t know it,” Noreê said. “And it may help us more than you think. Do you bear an impress of the thief?”

“Yes.” Aloê closed her eyes: the sensation was still clear in her mind. “More of an un-press—a sense of what the thief exactly is not. I’m not putting it well.”

“It can’t be put well.”

Aloê opened her eyes to see that Noreê was smiling at her again. “Tell me something, Vocate.”

“Yes?”

“You discovered this some time ago. Why did you wait to read the imprint in the message sock?”

Noreê said, “Why do you suppose?”

“I suppose that you thought I was the thief, and you wanted to test that suspicion before you revealed your knowledge.”

“Your shot strikes close, but not exactly in the center ring. I feared you might be the thief, and waited until I was sure you were not. You were a good choice for vengeancer, Aloê—none better. But I didn’t trust the man who proposed you. I had to be sure.”

“And now you are.”

“Yes. And you of me, I hope.”

“Within limits. I still think you’re crazy on the subject of the Ambrosii.”

Noreê shrugged uneasily. “It may be so. Intuition guides me very strongly. But to surrender to intuition is also to surrender to prejudice and other impulses that arise from the dark places of the mind. Everything has its cost. But I see what I see. It should not matter for this purpose, though: I can’t believe that Morlock would murder Earno and leave you to investigate the crime . . . unless you were somehow implicated. As you are not, plainly.”

Aloê yawned. “Beg your pardon. A long day for me. Noreê, will you meet with me tomorrow morning and help find the thief? If he was not the murderer, he must have been acting at their behest.”

“Surely.” Noreê put a gentle hand on Aloê’s shoulder. (The same hand had broken the neck of Osros, Third of the Dark Seven of Kaen.) “Rest, child. I’ll come see you in the morning.”

They walked out, exchanging a few more words as they stood in front of the Chamber. Then Noreê went her way and Aloê walked back to fetch her horse from the stable near the refectory where she had left it.

Full night had fallen, and a chilly night for spring. Horseman and Trumpeter were down and Chariot glowed somber in the eastern sky. The stars above were as sharp as silver knives; so was the wind off the river. She took part of her cloak and covered her head with it.

A single musical tone sounded, not far off in the night. She wondered for a startled moment why such a sound would make her afraid. Then the blade of a gravebolt entered her neck.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The God and His Enemies

“Are you enemies of the God?” the Gray Folk asked, their red eyes twitching with anger.

Deor waited for Morlock to say something, but he was sort of twitching himself. So the dwarf got up and said, “Ruthenen! I am Deor syr Theorn, Thain to the Graith of Guardians and cousin to the Eldest of the Seven Clans under Thrymhaiam. I greet you.”

“We do not ask who you are, we ask: who are you? Are you enemies of the God, or not?”

Either the truth or a lie seemed equally likely to get them killed. Deor decided he would rather be killed for the truth. “We are not enemies of your God, but neither are we friends. He’s no god of ours.”

“It is enough,” the leader decided. “Excantors, disarm them and keep them safe.”

“Let it happen,” Ambrosia suggested in Wardic, and Deor nodded. Kelat seemed inclined to follow Ambrosia’s lead, no matter what the situation and Morlock—there was something wrong with him. He was in no state to be making decisions.

Some of the Gray Folk picked up their packs and weapons; the others surrounded them.

“Begin!” said the leader.

The excantors sang. It was a harsh, deep music, but not unharmonious. If there were words in it, they were in a language Deor did not know. The excantors began to march, and the four companions perforce marched with them—south and east, into the burning heart of Grarby.

They came to a jail. It was crowded with Gray Folk who jeered as the excantors chanted their way down the narrow stone hallway. There was a cell at the end; it was occupied by Gray Folk in kilts. These were hustled out of the cell and stuffed one at a time into other already-overcrowded cells.

“We must leave you here,” the leader of the excantors said apologetically to Deor, “but we will return with food and other comforts. May the God not be with you.”

“Uh,” said Deor, driven to Morlockian levels of terseness by confusion. Were they guests or prisoners? What were the Gray Folk fighting about?

He put these questions to Kelat, but the young Vraid was as bemused as he was. “It was not like this when I was here before. The town was very quiet. I never saw a fight, much less a war.”

Morlock was sitting on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees, his luminous gray eyes fixed on something that was not present. Deor sat down beside him and said, “Morlock. . . .”

“It was so hungry,” Morlock said. “So hungry. In so much pain. It could never eat enough to dull the pain. The pain frightened it. The dark frightened it. It was meant to have eyes but didn’t any longer. It didn’t notice the cold but it was always cold. I noticed. I noticed the cold. Then it died and it didn’t want to die. But it died and died, and it keeps on dying.”

“That damn sword,” Ambrosia said. “He told me something about it. It’s dangerous to kill with the thing.”

“If—” Kelat began.

“Shut up. Deor, let him be for a while. If need be, I’ll go into rapport with him and try to bring him out of it. But the fact that he’s talking is actually a pretty good sign, as these things go.”

There was a key rattling in the lock of the cell. Ambrosia, Kelat, and Deor turned toward the door as it opened; Morlock didn’t seem to notice.

The leader of the excantors was there. He spoke to Ambrosia, “Lady, are you Ambrosia Viviana?”

“I am.”

“The Olvinar would like to speak with you.”

“Hypage opisô mou,” hissed Morlock.

Deor thought he was muttering gibberish, but Ambrosia looked startled, then laughed. “I’ll be careful, ruthen. Look after the children for me.”

She left the cell with the excantor, who locked the door and silently led her away.

Halfway up the long hall, Ambrosia said, “Why aren’t you chanting, if you don’t mind me asking?”

The mandrake shrugged scaly shoulders as crooked as her own and said, “It agitates the godstruck. And . . . I don’t think it really does any good.”

“Oh. What good is it supposed to do?”

“Keep God out of your head.”

“Is he often, um, in there?”

“Wouldn’t be much of a god if he wasn’t, would he?”

“I couldn’t say. Which god is he again?”

“There’s only one God!” said the excantor reflexively. “And he, uh, doesn’t exist,” he added lamely.

Theology was never a strong subject with Ambrosia, so she didn’t inquire further along these lines. There were more immediate questions, like: “Who is this Olvinar, then? I take it he exists.”

“Of course he exists. He would like to speak with you.”

“Well, then.”

The mandrake looked askance at her with blood-red eyes and then said grudgingly, “I must seem to you to be gibbering.”

“No,” said Ambrosia, lying with practiced ease. “But,” she added, because the best lies serve as gilt for the truth, “I don’t really understand what is happening here.”

“I will tell you the tale as I understand it while we walk.”