"Let me help you with that," Rokhlenu called.
"You should stay back. This hillside was a silver dump, I think. There may be some of the metal in these dust clouds."
"Urrrm. I think you're right: I can smell the nasty stuff. Well, they had to put it somewhere, I guess."
He saw mummified bodies of werewolves-some in the day shape, some in the night shape-scattered about the dusty hillside. He pointed at them and said, "Why would they come here? If I can sense the silver, they must have been able to."
"They killed themselves, I think. Some of them were carrying things. Notes, mementoes, that sort of thing."
"Horrible. You picked a nasty place for your work, old friend."
"Well, I knew no one else would get hurt if it went wrong. As it almost did: phlogiston is difficult stuff, and I haven't the material to handle it safely."
"What would you need?"
"A lightning bolt or two. The more the better. I could fashion some aethrium instruments from them. But the storms lately have been surprisingly free from lightning, and the landscape hereabouts is totally free from aether deposits."
"I did not know that."
"I think someone collects them. Your folk hero Ulugarriu, perhaps."
"You think Ulugarriu actually exists?" Rokhlenu asked doubtfully.
Morlock nodded toward the moon-clock on the side of the volcano. Rokhlenu nodded slowly. Personally, he didn't believe in Ulugarriu. But someone had built the wonders of Wuruyaaria: if he wasn't called Ulugarriu, he was called something else.
"You're sure you don't want help with that rock?" Rokhlenu said as Morlock came nearer, out of the poisonous dust.
"It's not too bad," Morlock replied.
"The thing must be heavier than you are."
"Just about. But there's something holding it up." He lifted the boulder high, and on its underside Rokhlenu saw what looked like two metal footprints, affixed to the rock with crystalline spikes.
"What are those?"
"Soles for my new shoes," Morlock said, lowering the boulder.
"Ghost. How many have you got?"
"Just the pair. At that, I had to sacrifice a lot of metal and phlogiston I was planning to use for the wings."
"I saw those. Will that thing work?"
"No idea. The crows think it will, or say that they think it will, but crows aren't always reliable. They may just want to see someone crash in it."
Rokhlenu understood that; he'd known a lot of crows. They'd probably laughed watching the werewolves eating silver. He thought about them and didn't feel like laughing.
"Why do you suppose people kill themselves?" he asked Morlock.
"Pain," Morlock said. "Loneliness. Shame. Anger."
Rokhlenu waited, but Morlock didn't say any more. He thought about the singer he had known who ate wolfbane, and he thought about Morlock's hand. He knew it wasn't any better: in fact, Morlock always wore a glove on his left hand now to hide how bad it was getting.
Rokhlenu had an odd feeling Morlock knew what he was thinking about, but he wasn't saying anything, and Rokhlenu couldn't think of anything to say. He grabbed the other side of the boulder, just to keep from being entirely useless, and they carried it back to the cave together.
"Liudhleeo says," he said when they set the rock down in the cave, "that we need to work on Hlupnafenglu soon-if you want to take care of that before we leave tonight."
"Yes," Morlock said. "If one of us is killed tonight, the task may prove impossible."
Hrutnefdhu had put away his metallic thread and ivory needle and was folding up the stilts under his upside-down box of rings. "I'll take him over to the lair-tower," he said to the others. "Liudhleeo will want to do the work over there. She hates it over here."
"The nearness of that silver, I think," Morlock said, and Rokhlenu turned his head in agreement. Different werewolves were sensitive to silver in different degrees, and Liudhleeo was more sensitive than most.
Hrutnefdhu was getting Hlupnafenglu's attention gently and patiently. He persuaded the groggy red werewolf with words and gestures to rise up and follow him. The red werewolf shuffled docilely along after Hrutnefdhu for a few steps. Then he seemed to wake up a little more. He cast his mad golden gaze around the cave, looking at Morlock, the nexus of speaking flames, the other two werewolves, Morlock again.
"It's all right," Morlock said, meeting his eyes. "It's all right. We will follow you over. We'll see you soon. Go with your friend Hrutnefdhu. Go with him. We'll follow."
It was not clear how much the crazy werewolf understood. But Morlock's words or tone seemed to settle him somehow. He followed Hrutnefdhu out of the cave into the afternoon light and they went together, the pale werewolf and the red one, down the wooden stairs to the wickerwork boat.
When they were gone, Rokhlenu turned to Morlock and said, "I want to see your hand."
Morlock considered the matter for a moment, and then he peeled off the glove without saying anything.
The hand was gray and dead looking. The fingers were the worst. And their tips looked not so much dead as …ghostly. They seemed to be translucent, almost transparent.
"Does it hurt?" Rokhlenu asked.
"Yes," said Morlock. "But most unpleasant is the lack of control. I-I'm not used to that."
Rokhlenu nodded grimly. "Did she do this to you? Liudhleeo? If she did-"
"I don't think so. I think it was from that spike that was in my head. Part of it may still be in there. Or, while it was in me, it did some damage that is killing me by inches."
"You think it will kill you, then?"
"Probably. Liudhleeo calls it `ghost sickness.' She has heard of it but never seen it."
"The Goweiteiuun have the best ghost-sniffers; maybe they can do something."
"So Liudhleeo says."
"And there's the Shadow Market in the low city, just inside the walls. Lots of crazy sorcerers work that place. Half of them are quacks and the rest are crooks, but they might know something useful."
"So Hrutnefdhu says."
Rokhlenu would have cursed the illness, the Sardhluun ghost-sniffers, Liudhleeo, Hrutnefdhu, and all of the sorcerers in the Shadow Market, but it would do no good. So he punched the wall of the cave instead. Morlock said nothing.
The moment passed. Rokhlenu picked up one of the swords from the weapon rack and said, "Can I take this? I prefer a sword to a spear, when it comes to a fight."
Morlock smiled a rare smile. "I made it for you." He took the sword and unwrapped the leather from the grip. Rokhlenu saw dark runes inset into the glass. "There is your name and a few runes of warding and finding. They won't do much for you, I'm afraid. But maybe you'll be able to find your blade when you need it, anyway."
"Thanks."
Morlock shrugged, nodded.
They went down to the wickerwork boat. It was where the two other werewolves had left it, on the far side of the water. Morlock whistled, and the boat swam back toward them on its own. Rokhlenu felt a qualm stepping into the boat, and was relieved when Morlock poled it across the water in the ordinary way.
He grabbed Morlock by the elbow before they went into the lair-tower and said, "Hey."
"Yes?"
"This ghost sickness. It hurts? It makes you angry?"
"Yes."
"You're not alone, though. And you have no reason to be ashamed."
Morlock's pale eyes fixed on him. "I know that. I know it, my friend."
The never-wolf seemed to understand what he was trying to say. So he stopped trying to say it, and they went upstairs to Hrutnefdhu and Liudhleeo's lair.
Hlupnafenglu was sleeping, somewhat twitchily, and he lay on the floor in the day's last light. Rokhlenu was not surprised to see a worried-looking Liudhleeo bending over him, but he was surprised to see his intended, Wuinlendhono, beside her.
They greeted each other warmly while Liudhleeo and Morlock exchanged a look-smoldering on Liudhleeo's part, rather frosty on Morlock's. Rokhlenu supposed Liudhleeo was trying to have sex with him; her appetites were becoming fairly notorious around the settlement, and even in Apetown and Dogtown, or so Rokhlenu had heard.