“I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t feel anything.”
“You will. Come on. It’s cold out here.”
It was cold. Inside the tower there would be—a fire.
“Let’s stay out for a while longer,” she said. She was starting to feel something, and she didn’t like it.
The thains and the summoner had all gone in. Jordel and Baran stayed out with her, although she didn’t ask them to. She was always grateful to them for that.
But when she had mastered her feelings, she went in and got something to eat. You have to eat.
Morlock Ambrosius, wearing the black cloak of exile from the Wardlands, limped into the night. Eventually, he took a strip from his shirt and bound up his leg to slow the bleeding, but he didn’t bother to do anything else to it. It would heal or not heal. He was indifferent to it. Eventually the bleeding stopped, but the pain went on for a long time. He was aware of it without the slightest desire to do anything about it.
Another day of aimless walking and he found himself at night in a town on the coast of the Narrow Sea. Some of the buildings were lit up, so not everyone here was dead. One of the buildings had an open door, so he walked into it.
There were empty benches and tables. He sat down on a bench.
A man came up to him and said, “What can I do for you?”
That struck Morlock as funny, and he laughed.
“Maybe you’ve had too much to drink already,” said the man.
Morlock looked at him. He looked around. The place was an inn or something.
Now there was someone else there. There were two men, one bald, one black-haired, both with red-brown faces and black eyes. “He’s been in a fight,” the bald man was saying. “Look at that bandage on his leg! Listen, we can’t have him dying here.”
“He’s not dying. He’s just hungry and thirsty. Right, friend? You want something? You’ve got money to pay for it, something to trade?”
“Money,” Morlock repeated idly. He should have some fingers of gold from the Endless Empire. He took a couple from a pocket and looked at them with vague interest.
“See there!” said the man with black hair. “I bet you won that fight you were in, friend. What’ll you have? Food? Drink? Both?”
He was hungry. And you have to eat.
“Drink,” said Morlock Ambrosius.
SIGIL
I, Deor syr Theorn, told this tale at your request, the true tale of our harven-kin’s exile from the Wardlands. It is a mostly true tale, I think: I talked to many people, even some I hated, to learn the things I put in it. Other things I had to guess at. That’s true in any history, and don’t trust the historian who says differently. I began the tale long ago but finished it only tonight. You may no longer remember that you asked for it. But I think it’s a tale that you need to hear.
Wyrththeorn, you are the youngest of my many sons, and you have caused me more worry than the others put together. From the time that you were hatched, I constantly found you causing some kind of mischief with your clever fingers, your crafty mind, your crooked, insistent urge to know and do.
I have here beside me a letter from Rystyrn, your most recent master in the arts of making. He says that he will not have you in his shop. You are disruptive; you are defiant; you cause dangerous fires with your experiments in making; you disturb the other apprentices with your odd remarks about geometry and ethics. He says you cannot be taught, and it is almost true: you cannot be taught by him. And he is the last master of making under Thrymhaiam who would consent to take you as an apprentice, and then only because your ruthen-kin, the Eldest of Theorn Clan, begged him to. Your shadow walks before you, my son, and it is very dark.
There is only one other person in my life who has caused me so much wonder, amazement, and grief.
And so, Wyrth, if you have read this far, I give you a choice. In the morning, go to Master Rystyrn and make your humblest apologies. Be a good student to him, and he will be a good master to you, and someday you will have a place of honor under these mountains.
Or leave these mountains. Leave the Wardlands. Find our harven-kin Morlock in the unguarded lands, as I long ago tried to do and failed. We hear many tales of him these days, and few of them good. But all agree that he is a wonderworker beyond compare, even beyond what he was in his youth, when the greatest makers of Thrymhaiam already acclaimed him as their master.
Stay or go. I know you will be a trouble to me wherever you are. It’s that way with everyone I love.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
The Lands of Laent during the Ontilian Interregnum
Laent is a flat or shield-shaped land mass bordered by ocean to the west and south and empty space to the east; north of Laent is a region of uninhabitable cold; south of Laent is a large and largely unexplored continent, Qajqapca. Beyond that is believed to be an impassable zone of fire.
Along the western edge of Laent lies the Wardlands, a highly developed but secretive culture. It has no government, as such, but its borders are protected by a small band of seers and warriors called the Graith of Guardians.
Dividing Laent into two unequal halves, north and south, are a pair of mountain ranges: the Whitethorn Range (running from the Western Ocean eastward) and the Blackthorn Range (running from the Eastern Edge westward). There is a pass between the two mountain ranges, the Dolich Kund (later the Kirach Kund). North of the Dolich Kund there are only two human cities of any note, Narkunden and Aflraun. The rest of the North is a heavily wooded and mountainous region inhabited by humans and others of a more or less fabulous nature (e.g., the werewolf city of Wuruyaaria).
The Whitethorn Range, by custom, forms the northern border of the Wardlands. The Blackthorn Range is divided between the untamed dragons and the Heidhhaiar (the Endless Empire) of the dwarves.
Immediately south of the Whitethorn Range was the wreckage of the old Empire of Ontil, ruined by its rulers’ ambitions, ineptitude, and misused powers. A period of general chaos and more or less continuous warfare obtained in these lands until the advent of the Vraidish tribes and the rise of the Second Empire of Ontil (ongoing in the present story).
South of the former Empire of Ontil lay the so-called Kingdom of Kaen. The ancient cities of the Kaeniar considered themselves at perpetual war with the Wardlands, which lay just across the Narrow Sea. The Wardlands, however, took little notice of the Kaeniar or any other domain of the unguarded lands.
The region between the Grartan Mountains and the Whitethorns was called the Gap of Lone by inhabitants of the unguarded lands. Inhabitants of (and exiles from) the Wardlands called it “the Maze” because of the magical protections placed on it.
Immediately south of the Blackthorns was a wooded region of extremely poor repute, Tychar. Farther south was the Anhikh Kômos of Cities, Ontil’s great rival who unaccountably failed to take advantage of Ontil’s fall to extend its domains. The largest Anhikh city, where the Kômarkh lives, is Vakhnhal, along the southern coast of Laent. Anhi may or may not extend its domain to the Eastern Edge of the world—accounts differ.
Appendix B
The Gods of Laent
There is no universally accepted religious belief, except in Anhi, where the government enforces the worship of Torlan and Zahkaar (Fate and Chaos).
In Ontil an eclectic set of gods are worshipped or not worshipped, especially (under the influence of Coranian exiles from the Wardlands) the Strange Gods, including Death, Justice, Peace, Misery, Love, and Memory.