What he saw, presently, was a dim corridor with Yaniunulu standing (somewhat twitchily) at the far end. The corridor floor had a dark seam down the middle, and it looked like the edges did not fully meet the walls on either side.
"Eh," Morlock said. The trap was so obvious he had to be concerned it was simply the mask for another more subtle one. But before him was one of the citizens involved in his friend's murder. If he could not get him to talk, he would not let him get away.
He threw the spear in his hand.
He was ten paces away from Yaniunulu, and he was ill and feeling weak. But he was still Morlock Beast Slayer: the spear passed through the werewolf and pinned him to the wall behind. Yaniunulu screamed and struggled to free himself.
Morlock crouched down and pounded on the corridor floor with his fist. The two sides of the floor folded apart as he had expected. They were set on axles, it seemed, about a handsbreadth away from the walls; the space between the wall base and the floor had been left to allow the floorboards to swing freely when the trap was sprung. Below was a filthy stretch of water that looked like a sewer-and smelled like one, too.
Morlock tested the strength of the axle holding one of the swinging floorboards; it seemed strong enough to hold his weight. Balancing with his right hand against the wall, he stepped onto the upright edge of the floorboard and walked across to where Yaniunulu was still vainly struggling against the spear that pinned him to the wall.
The wound was grave, straight through the middle of the werewolf's body. But it hardly bled at all.
"What are you, citizen?" Morlock asked. Yaniunulu's dark eyes, void of expression, met his, but there was no other answer.
"Not what you appear, at any rate," Morlock observed. He drew his other spear and, striking vertically, slashed Yaniunulu from the base of his neck to his belly.
The werewolf's loose brown garment fell away, and great folds of his furred skin parted like curtains. Through the gaps Morlock saw several small creatures, hardly larger than his fists. They had pink-and-brown mottled skins, void of hair, and long gray tails. Their faces were strangely human, but for the long ratlike snouts. He had wounded one of the rat-things, and evidently killed another, but the rest chittered angrily. One issued a high screeching sound like a command, and the ratlike beasts began to abandon the Yaniunulu simulacrum they had been operating.
They held long glittering razors liked swords in their hands, and they moved toward him menacingly.
He decapitated one with his spear when it approached him incautiously and kicked another into the slime of the open trap. He made a great sweeping feint with the spear, and the rough line of ratlike beasts broke. They fled, a dozen or so, across the edge of the floor trap and away into the harsh sunlight at the corridor mouth.
Morlock examined the now-motionless simulacrum of Yaniunulu. It was a fascinating piece of work. The skin and fur and bone seemed to be real and alive, but it was all just a shell, with levers and pulleys to be operated by the tiny crew of rats. It was marked nowhere MADE BY ULUGARRIU, but it hardly needed to be.
The corridor was a dead end that gave no clear entrance into the rest of the building. Morlock turned and followed the rats across the trap and into the cruel sunlight outside.
The rats had long since fled, but he saw a familiar figure lying on the ground at the head of the alley: Lakkasulakku. Several citizens were bending over him, not obviously with kind intent. Morlock ran over, brandishing the spear still in his hand, and they retreated.
Lakkasulakku was bleeding copiously from wounds in his foot and thigh. A swelling bulged on his forehead; he had been struck there. Morlock thought bitterly of the razorlike blades of the ratlike beasts. Had he followed them straight out, they might not have had the opportunity to do this.
He sewed up the greater wounds with thread and needle he had with him in a stray pocket and bound up the wounds with strips torn from his clothing. Then he tossed the young citizen over his shoulder and loped off down the street.
Lakkasulakku's face was pale, and oily with sweat; his breathing was irregular; he had been unconscious since Morlock had found him. But Morlock thought he could be saved by a healer as skillful as Liudhleeo. He made his way back to the outliers as swiftly as he could.
The sunlight was growing gray for Morlock by the time he reached the southern gate. He was glad to see one of the old irredeemables on duty at the gate, although he could not remember the werewolf's name. He was about to ask that the guard help him haul Lakkasulakku to Liudhleeo's when the guard said to him, "The gnyrrand wants to see you, Khretvarrgliu."
"Later," Morlock said. "I have to get this young citizen to a healer."
"She-" the irredeemable began, then paused. "There was a thing that happened at your cave. That's what I heard."
The day got grayer still for Morlock, though the sun was as fierce as ever. "Can you take care of my friend?"
The irredeemable bowed his grizzled head. "An honor, Khretvarrgliu. The gnyrrand and-and-and the others are at the First Wolf's lair."
Morlock, relieved of the burden of Lakkasulakku, ran as fast as his weary legs would carry him to the First Wolf's tower. The goldtooth on duty at the entrance saw him coming and simply stepped aside.
The bodies were laid out on biers in the main audience hall on the ground floor. Hlupnafenglu was staring at the ceiling with what Morlock would have called an expression of mild interest, were it not for the raw red hole in his unmoving chest. The other body was headless and already wrapped in linen, but Morlock recognized it as Liudhleeo's from its outline.
Wuinlendhono was bent over Liudhleeo's body, sobbing. She had one of the dead linen-wrapped hands gripped in both of hers. Rokhlenu stood beside her, his hands on her shoulders, his face clenched with grief and worry.
Wuinlendhono looked up with red eyes as Morlock approached. She dropped the dead hand, shook off Rokhlenu, and stood between Morlock and the corpse as if to protect it from him.
"If she," she said. "If this. If you. If. If this. If this was because of you. If this happened because of you. I'll kill you myself. You sheep-stinking, apefaced, never-wolf, plepnup bastard. I will kill you."
Morlock stepped around her. The neck was severed in the same way as Hrutnefdhu's had been. Hlupnafenglu's neck was untouched. Of course, it was possible that the killer had planned to remove Hlupnafenglu's head in the same way, but had been interrupted. He would ask about how the bodies had been discovered, if he had a chance, and if he could get someone to talk to him instead of screaming at him. But, even if that were the case, the killer (or killers) must have killed them both and then proceeded to decapitate Liudhleeo's corpse first. This had been done for a reason.
The linen wrappings were falling loose from the hand Wuinlendhono had been weeping over. Morlock looked at the hand, then picked it up and further unwrapped the linen to get a better look at it.
"Leave her alone," Wuinlendhono shrieked, and began to pummel him. "Leave her alone!"
He turned and held the dead hand up in front of her face. "Do you recognize this hand?"
The unexpected question shocked her into stillness. Presently she said, "I recognize it. I first saw it ten years ago. I was fleeing from the Goweiteiuun after killing my husband. I ran into the necropolis. I stole food from the funeral gifts; that was how I stayed alive. Once I saw a hand reaching for the same piece of rotten meat that I wanted, and I bit it. See the scar? See the scar there, on her hand? That was where I bit it. We fought, Liudhleeo and I, and she-we fought. She didn't kill me, though I guess maybe she could have; I was near starving, weaker than a chicken. She was running away, too. She said we should go to the outliers. I. She. I went with her. Came here with her. I don't know what I would have done. Without her. And now. Now I'll have to."