Wuinlendhono lowered her head, as if angry or frustrated, but her low voice was calm as she said, "Do you know what happened to my Rokhlenu?"
"I saw it," Morlock said. "And now, yes, I think I know what happened to him. In here"-he rapped the barrel with his right hand-"is the motive energy for one of the airships. It seems to be a piece of a moon, or a stone that acts like a moon. I spent much of the morning in visionary contemplation of its light. Rokhlenu was briefly exposed to it, and the results were-well, I assume you have seen him."
"Yes. I have seen him. Can you help him?"
"I have two ideas. One will not wholly heal him, but will not kill him. The other may kill him, but may heal him."
"What are they?"
"The first: surgery with a silver knife. I could reshape his frame, as either wolf or man. He would be more or less whole, but incapable of transformation; wounds caused by silver seem to leave permanent traces on a werewolf."
"If you are talking like this to horrify me, you don't know who I am. It would take more than you to horrify me."
Morlock looked at her briefly, his eyes wide with surprise, then shook his head. "The other idea is simpler and more dangerous. Rokhlenu's being was infected by something from the moonstone's light. I think I know what it is, and I may be able to blast it clear of him."
"That does sound dangerous. Please do it."
"Rokhlenu will choose."
"He's incapable of choosing. I am his mate and have the right to speak for him; that is our law."
"I live by my own law. Blood for blood, and only blood. Rokhlenu is my blood, harven coruthen."
"I don't know what that means," said Wuinlendhono, and now she did sound angry. "But I am the First Wolf of the outliers. And-"
"How well do you know him, really?" Morlock interrupted.
"I am him. He is me. We were one at the mating and we are one still."
"Then trust him to make the right choice. I will fight with you or with anyone, Wuinlendhono, if there is some point to it. Is there a point to this?"
Wuinlendhono raised her head and looked at him. "No. Is there anything you need?"
"Time. Glass. Sunlight. A pair of able hands."
"I have hands," said Hlupnafenglu eagerly.
"I'll leave you to it, then," Wuinlendhono said. She stood in a single fluid motion, looked at Morlock as if she were going to say something, then walked off without doing so.
The time was time. Hlupnafenglu didn't know where it came from, and he lost track of where it went to. He spent much of it making glass. Morlock wanted enough to make a decent-size corridor of plate glass. He taught Hlupnafenglu how to make it unbreakable by folding it through higher dimensions. That was immensely entertaining to the red werewolf, and he enjoyed doing it. Meanwhile, Morlock often lay working in the sun, the glow of his irises visible through his closed lids even at noon. On the third day, he began to do it with a vat of molten glass beside him. Hlupnafenglu wandered by the vat occasionally. There were odd shapes-outlines and angles gleaming icy-pale through the yellow-orange molten glass. They reminded Hlupnafenglu of the shapes Morlock had taught him for representing fourthand fifth-dimensional polytopes in three-dimensional space. But he found it too hot to bear for long-the sun seemed more intense there, as if something were funnelling sunlight toward the vat.
One afternoon, while Morlock worked in the sunlight, Hlupnafenglu was welding glass plates for the corridor. He enjoyed all the tasks of the current project, but this was his favorite, as it involved interaction with the flames. He enjoyed their ill-tempered self-regarding little personalities, and they spoke mostly in a language Morlock called Wardspeech. Learning the language was an interesting contrast to the tasks of executing fourdimensional designs while limited to three-dimensional senses, although he enjoyed that as well. Hlupnafenglu was enjoying most things these days: his mind was finally awake after a long sleep, and it was fun to see all the things it could do.
Often Hrutnefdhu came by to assist him, but today he was alone, except for the flames. He had just cajoled them to seal up a section of corridor wall when the hill was shaken by a roar like thunder. Hrutnefdhu ran out of the cave and saw a somewhat singed-looking Morlock picking himself up from the ground. The vat was in fragments scattered about the hillside. And where the glass had been was a spiked stonelike object, too bright to look at directly.
"We must establish a zone of Perfect Occlusion around the sunstone," said Morlock matter-of-factly.
It was obvious what the sunstone was, so Hlupnafenglu asked, "How do we establish Perfect Occlusion?"
"I'll show you," Morlock said, and he explained the process carefully to Hlupnafenglu, talking him through it.
"Khretvarrgliu, why are you teaching me so much?" Hlupnafenglu asked when the sunstone was sealed in the Perfect Occlusion.
"I am dying," said Morlock, as matter-of-factly as before. "This way I can pass on some of my skills. Plus, you have natural gifts for making. If you wish to pursue the craft, you should seek out Wyrtheorn of Thrymhaiam. He is a master of making, and was my pupil for many years. He can teach you much."
"Khretvarrgliu, I will."
"We've done enough for today."
That meant that Hlupnafenglu was to leave, because Morlock was going to start drinking. Or at least, that's what it often meant.
But one day, about five days later, Hlupnafenglu returned around dawn to find that Morlock had been working all night. By now they had actually built the glass corridor, setting it into the side of the hill. In the night, Morlock had silvered all the glass, and laid down a second layer of glass, sealing in the deadly metal. It was now safe to be near, although Hlupnafenglu felt dread standing next to it, and he could see that Hrutnefdhu (who had accompanied him that morning) felt it, too.
Morlock's face was gray with weariness, and Hlupnafenglu was alarmed to see that the ghost illness had eaten even more of Morlock's arm during the night. Nonetheless, the crooked man declined to rest.
"There are things we must discuss," Morlock said.
Hlupnafenglu thought he was going to talk about his imminent death, a conversation the red werewolf had been dreading. But instead Morlock started talking about the sun and the moon.
Morlock explained that every living body had three physical parts: a core-self, a shell, and an impulse cloud. This last was so tenuous in being that it was almost nonphysical, but not quite, and it could (under certain circumstances) survive the death of the person or animal whose life had produced it.
"Is that what a ghost is?" Hrutnefdhu asked reverently.
"I don't know what a ghost is," Morlock said. "But this is what an impulse cloud is."
He explained how the sun drew impulse clouds up into the sky, so that the sky was full of them. The moons gathered them together and sent them back to earth, entangled in moonlight.
"That is what powered the airships," Morlock said. "A moonstone imbued with moonlight and impulse clouds. It is the impulse clouds that distorted Rokhlenu's being."
"Is it impulse clouds that make us change from the day shape to the night shape?" Hlupnafenglu asked.
"Yes," Morlock said. "Your natures are permeable, somehow-receptive to the impulse clouds latent in moonlight. Whether you are wolves that can become human or men and women that can become wolves, I don't know. But I suspect that each shapechanger is receptive to impulse clouds from at least one other animal. There may be some who can assimilate and change into many different kinds of animals: I don't know."
The pale werewolf asked, "Then why is Rokhlenu distorted? The moonstone just issued light similar to the moons-"
"But more intense, more concentrated," Morlock said. "There is a miasma in some impulse clouds, the effluvium of the dead soul. If it accumulates in a werewolf's being, he or she becomes distorted, unable to change."
"Like semiwolves," Hlupnafenglu said. "Or …never-wolves?"