“Er . . . I . . . I suppose it could be done,” the dwarf monarch said. “Yes, of course it could be done. He could sit with the astronomers. This gathering is really for us of the vrevnenen to get to know each other.”
“What does vrevnenen mean?”
“‘Rulers,’ Morlock,” Ambrosia supplied.
“It’s a word I don’t know,” Morlock said to the Lorvadh. “A word I do know is harven. It means that where Deor cannot go, I will not go.”
“I’m afraid it’s impossible,” the Lorvadh said patiently. “I have my Master of Accountants here, my Master of Armies, my Master of Law-Speakers, My Master of Meatpackers—all the masters of the Endless Empire. Ambrosia describes your . . . your friend as a thain. I believe I know what that means. It is quite impossible for him to sit at our table.”
Morlock looked at Kelat, who was just coming over, and seemed shocked at what he had heard. He looked at Ambrosia, who met his eye with knowing impatience. He deliberately looked over the head of the Lorvadh and turned away. Vyrn was saying something but he paid no heed. He left the hall and rattled down the stairs and hallways of the warrens until he came to their quarters.
Deor was there, packing their things. He looked up with a quizzical eye as Morlock entered.
“So soon?” the dwarf asked. “Ambrosia gave me to understand you might be much of the night. The Fifteen were apparently impressed by your feats at the drinking board and wanted to put you to the test.”
“When you’re done, we’re leaving.”
“I’m done. Just the two of us—er, the three of us?”
Morlock turned to see Kelat standing in the doorway. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know that Deor had been excluded.”
“Is that what this is about?” Deor shook his head and laughed. “Morlocktheorn, it’s not as if I care. Sitting with the Fifteen Masters of the Endless Empire is not my idea of an evening’s entertainment.”
“Nor mine. Thanks for packing.” Morlock took Tyrfing and his new stabbing spear in their scabbards and bound them to the pack Deor had made for him, then threw the pack on his shoulders. Kelat and Deor also shouldered their packs, and by that time Ambrosia was there.
“You, sir,” she said to Morlock, “are the most irritating man not named ‘Merlin.’”
“Eh.”
“That makes it all better, of course. Well, let’s get out of here before they put us to death for insulting their king.” She took on her pack and they trudged to the western gate.
Waiting for them was a division of spear-dwarves clad in scarlet and gold. At their head was a dwarf wearing a silver circlet in his graying red hair and a shirt of chain mail. “Morlock Ambrosius?” he said, as the four approached.
“Yes,” Morlock said flatly. If it came to a fight, he thought they could get through the gate with a little luck, and then the narrowness of the passage would be in their favor. . . .
The dwarf held out both hands, empty and palm up, a gesture of peace. “I am Fyndh, Master of Soldiers for the Endless Empire. We did not have a chance to meet in the Council of Fifteen just now.”
Morlock considered for a moment, then held out his hands, empty and palm down, over Fyndh’s hands without making contact.
Fyndh smiled and withdrew his hands. “Vyrn is an idiot. He inherited most of his money and made the rest by loaning it at interest. My father was a shoemaker, and I worked my way through the army from the lowest rank. We see the world differently—and I think I see it not so differently from you.”
Morlock nodded, waited.
Fyndh continued, “My friends among the makers speak highly of you. I’m sorry we never got a chance to drink together. If you and your companions succeed in what you are about, you will always have friends in the Endless Empire. If not—well, we will remember you with honor until the sun goes out.”
Morlock nodded and said, “Good fortune, Master Fyndh.”
“To you and yours,” Fyndh said. He said goodbye to each of the companions as they passed, and led his troops in a cheer as they walked out the gate and up into the pale light of the sun.
Ambrosia fell into step beside Morlock. “Fyndh will be their next Lorvadh, I think. I hope. Vyrn will never be a friend to the Vraids or the Wardlands now.”
Morlock had nothing to say to that, and so said nothing. The rough, snow-stained terrain of the Dolich Kund was before them, and the sun stood dying in the sky above. It was a long, bitter road to the end of the world.
CHAPTER TWO
Fire, Gods, and a Stranger
That night they camped just past the crest of the Dolich Kund. It was a cold night: an ice-edged wind beneath searingly bright stars and Horseman, the only moon in the sky, standing somber and low in the east.
They made a fire, of course, and partial occlusions to block the wind, but Kelat was obviously down-hearted. He was possibly comparing his bed last night to the long series of cold campsites in his future.
That was bad, not just for Kelat but for all of them. Morale was important on a long journey with a small company, as the three elder companions knew well. Deor looked several times at Kelat’s glum face and then finally said to Morlock, “Do the thing with the fire.”
Kelat looked up, instead of down, which was a start. Morlock obligingly reached into the heart of the fire and drew forth a handful of live coals.
As Kelat watched with an open mouth, Morlock juggled the bright burning coals with his fingertips. Deor watched, too, with a knowing grin: he never got tired of this trick. Ambrosia, however, was watching Kelat’s open admiration with an envious sideways glance. Eventually she reached into the fire and began juggling coals as well.
Now Kelat was looking from Ambrosius to Ambrosia with unfeigned and delighted wonder.
Ambrosia looked Morlock in the eye and lifted an inquiring eyebrow. He nodded. She tossed him a coal and he tossed one back in the air, and from then on they wove a complex tracery of red light, juggling some coals and playing catch with others, until they began to fade, and Kelat’s amazement grew cooler and more familiar.
He eagerly asked how they had done it, and wondered if he could learn it, too, and Ambrosia and Deor explained to him about the blood of Ambrose and their immunity from fire. In the end he was almost as downcast as he had been before, although he kept stealing glances at Ambrosia’s hands.
Morlock pulled some glowgems from a pocket in his sleeve. They weren’t as bright or as satisfyingly fiery as live coals, but he thought they might serve a purpose here. He tossed one to Kelat. The Vraid was startled, but caught it instinctively. Morlock showed him how to juggle it, and guided him through the steps of adding a second glowgem. He caught on quickly, not dropping them too often, and Morlock left him to practice juggling under Deor’s watchful and amused eye.
Ambrosia gestured to him and they walked together into the dark beyond the range of the fire or the hearing of their two companions.
“You’re corrupting my princeling,” Ambrosia remarked drily.
“Oh?”
“Oh, yes. Soon he’ll care about loyalty, and honesty, and wonder, and then what kind of king will he make, hey?”
Morlock grunted. “A good one?”
“Unlikely. Morality is different for kings, Morlock, than for the people they rule.”
“Eh.” Morlock knew little about kings, or being ruled, so he couldn’t say this was untrue.
“That’s easy for you to say. Too easy, as I have often told you before.”
“Eh.”
“Be that way, then! I suppose I have other Uthars to choose from. I could bear to fuck this one, though, and that’s not nothing.”
Morlock somehow disliked discussing sex with his sister, and he hadn’t realized that’s what they were doing. He considered long and hard and said, “Oh?”
“Yes, it’s part of my deal with Lathmar the Old. I will pick the next King of the Vraids and mate with him.”