James Enge - The Wolf Age

"Is it-oh ghost," whispered Wuinlendhono. "Is it you, Liudhleeo? Have you-have you come back?"

"Not exactly, sweetling," said the newcomer gently. "You knew me as Liudhleeo, and as Hrutnefdhu, and as others still whose names may someday occur to you. But my true name is Ulugarriu."

The werewolves bowed their head in reverence and fear at the great name.

Morlock, of course, did not. He looked coldly on the werewolf maker and said to them, "You visualized this moment."

"It appeared faintly in my bowl of dreams," Ulugarriu acknowledged. "But I could not be certain of it. Events I myself may take part in do not visu alize clearly for me. And by then I had already decided to come help you, if it came to this."

"Then you don't know if we will slay the Ice-Binder or not?"

"No-not 'know' exactly. In fact, if I were a bookie, I wouldn't give good odds on us. But it's a fight I wouldn't miss, my friend."

The citizens left before noon. Ulugarriu and Wuinlendhono spent some time talking urgently together in the arch of Southgate, while Morlock and the others stood apart. In the end, Ulugarriu tried to put their hand on Wuinlendhono's face and she recoiled, her face a mask of fury. Ulugarriu looked mildly on her, bid her farewell, and walked away without looking back.

Wuinlendhono stared after Ulugarriu in frustrated rage. Her eyes caught Morlock's, and her expression changed as if she had been stabbed. He had reminded her of her dead husband, he guessed. She raised her left hand in farewell; he did the same. The irredeemables, shouting their good-byes to him, surrounded her in a guard formation and they ran off together in long loping strides down the plank road to the marsh's edge.

Morlock left Ulugarriu to their own devices in the empty town. He returned to his cave to forge the weapon that had come into his mind when he had heard Lekkativengu's story. For it, he would need silver, a great deal of silver. Collecting it from the silver-wastes would probably be quicker than transmuting it out of swamp mud, so he spent much of the first day doing that.

A crow flew into the cave that night after dark. After remarking that it was as hot as a bonfire outside and as hot as fifty bonfires in the cave, she asked if he was coming home for supper anytime soon. His den-mate wanted to know.

Morlock said he was surprised that there were any crows left around Wuruyaaria and suggested that she and anyone she cared about should get out.

The crow absentmindedly agreed and wondered if he had any of that bread stuff around?

Morlock gave her some crumbled flatbread and then observed that he had used the rest to stoke his smelting furnace. This was a lie, strictly speaking, but he didn't want crows hanging around Wuruyaaria hoping for more handouts from Morlock. Whether they defeated the Ice-Binder or not, the region was likely to be unhealthy for some time.

He set the molten silver to cycle through a fifth-dimensional pattern of mirrorglass pipes and went down the hill, across the marshy water, through the empty gate, and up the lair-tower to the den he had shared with Liudhleeo and Hrutnefdhu-or, as it turned out, Ulugarriu.

Ulugarriu had set a low table on the floor; there were several covered dishes on it and bowls of clean water. There were two couches set on opposite sides of the room, and Ulugarriu was spreading a sheet on one as Morlock entered. They watched him as he took in the scene, and then they said stiffly, "We needn't both sleep here if you dislike it. The den below this is vacant. In fact, nearly every building in town is vacant. But …anyway, I promise not to touch you. I'm well aware that you find me disgusting."

"No," Morlock said, "but we should sleep in separate couches at least. I haven't decided whether I'm going to kill you yet."

"Haven't you, my stalwart?" Ulugarriu turned to finish their work on the couch, then turned to face him again. "That seems unusually indecisive."

"I don't believe your story about Hlupnafenglu's death, but it may be true. If it isn't-"

"It is true!"

"If it is true, you, at least, can't swear to it. According to you, Hlupnafenglu committed suicide in your absence."

"Oh. I guess you're right."

Confident assertions beyond the evidence were one symptom of lying; Morlock had noticed others in Ulugarriu's account, but did not choose to say so.

"Aren't you being incautious in telling me of this, Morlock?" Ulugarriu continued. "I might kill you to protect myself."

"No. You need me to do your fighting for you."

"Oh! That's true, I suppose. When I caught you in my intention, you also caught me. Life is odd sometimes, isn't it?"

"Yes. What's for supper?"

"Nothing remarkable. Some dried fish, cheese, peas, a bit of smoked seal (I think). I didn't bother to heat it up, because …"

"It's hot enough already, yes. Thanks for gathering it."

"It was no trouble, dear." They sat and began to eat without ceremony.

"Your appetite certainly has returned," Ulugarriu remarked approvingly.

Morlock nodded. "Not dying agrees with me."

"Well, I agree with it. Can I ask you a personal question?"

Morlock shrugged.

"Taking that as a yes-aren't you reluctant to share a meal with someone you may later have to kill?"

"Not if I've warned them. Then there's no deceit."

"So you were being polite. In your rather brutal way. How strange you are."

Morlock shrugged again.

"Tell me what you did today or I'll say something disturbingly personal."

"I collected silver ore discarded in the waste hills and smelted it. I left it cycling through a five-space web of mirrorglass tubes."

"I didn't get that last part-but never mind. Once you have the metal, isn't that enough? Can't you make your weapon?"

"No, I don't want to use regular silver. As metals go, it's too soft to make a good weapon. Also it melts too easily."

"You're going to change it somehow?"

"Yes. You know that quicksilver is a form of the metal even softer and more malleable than regular silver."

"Of course. Though some people say it's a different metal entirely."

Morlock waved aside this superstition without bothering to discuss it. "There is a form of silver opposite to quicksilver: harder, more brittle, with a much higher melting point."

"I see. Sort of a deadsilver."

"Yes. Once I extract its phlogiston, it should be suitable for the weapon I have in mind."

"What is that, exactly?"

Morlock sketched it on the surface of the table with the point of a knife.

"I see," said Ulugarriu at last. "How can I help? I can't work the silver with you, obviously."

"We'll need a lot of cable for this plan to work-strong and lightweight."

"Yes-yes I can provide that. But it will burn, I'm afraid."

"We'll dephlogistonate it."

"Of course. I'm looking forward to learning that technique from you; it will be so useful."

In fact, Morlock believed that Ulugarriu already knew how to remove phlogiston from matter. He wasn't sure why they were lying to him about this-mere habit, perhaps. But it was a useful reminder that Ulugarriu could not really be trusted.

The meal was done, and Morlock said, "You brought the food, so I'll clear UP.

"Oh, ghost," said Ulugarriu, and tossed an empty dish out the window. "Let the swamp have it. We'll be here a few days, but I can always scavenge clean dishes when we need them."

They threw the dishes out the window, laughing a little, and turned in on their separate couches.

The next day, Morlock left the silver to unquicken in its five-web and built a ballista out of lumber from abandoned buildings in the outlier settlement and rope that he borrowed from Ulugarriu's cable-making project, which they had set up in the empty marketplace. Ulugarriu had rapidly built a rope-winding machine out of wood, and by the time they were done, citizens were already bringing in fiber to feed into it.