James Enge - The Wolf Age

"No," said the severed head in Wardspeech, one of the languages Morlock had grown up speaking. "I felt an impulse to manifest to you. I am War. "

Morlock mulled this over for a bit, and said in the same language, "You are one of the Strange Gods?"

"I am."

Wurnafenglu asked him what the ghost he was babbling about, but Morlock had no trouble ignoring him. "Do you know Death?" he asked.

"She is one of our company. I don't count her as a friend, but we often work together, of course."

"Why have you chosen to show yourself to me?"

War dismissed the question with a wave of his free hand. "I do what I choose, and I don't explain myself even to myself. I should thank you, though. This has been the most entertaining Year of Choosing that I remember."

"I have nothing to do with that."

"Never lie to a god. What's the point? I was manifest when you and your friends escaped the Vargulleion. I was manifest when you fought the Sardhluun on the ground and the Neyuwuleiuun in the sky. I watched the battles your friend has been fighting."

"They call them rallies, I think."

"Never bandy words with a god. He may take offense."

Morlock shrugged and opened his right hand.

"You are indifferent, I see. But in a way, we are old friends. And I often visited you in the Vargulleion."

Morlock nodded. "Do you know Death?" he asked.

"No one really knows her; she is the strangest of the Strange Gods."

"I think I met her, once."

"`Met' is improper usage. She may have allowed you to perceive her manifestation. Yes, I visualize that. I don't understand it, though. Perhaps you can ask her about it when you see her."

"You visualize my imminent death?"

"Not visualize, no. All things are in flux, and visualizations of the future are near valueless. Still, if I were a gambling god, I would not bet on your living to the next moonset."

Morlock turned his face away and sensed without seeing War demanifest himself. When he looked back at the corridor, both War and Wurnafenglu were gone and the semiwolf watcher had returned and was staring at him, the long doglike jaw somewhat askew.

Morlock wondered why he was so impressed. Clearly he had heard stories of Khretvarrgliu. But it was not impossible he somehow felt without understanding the manifestation of the Strange God. He had few honorteeth: one of those Wurnafenglu called the rabble.

"I am not angry at you," he said to the guard in Sunspeech. "I am rarely angry. But when I am angry, I will blot out the sun. Do you understand me? I will blot out the sun."

The watcher gaped at him, but did not respond. Morlock decided he would try again with the next shift.

Days passed. Eventually the day for his execution came. The corridor filled with watchers, most of whom stared at him in open terror: he had spent each shift working on their minds. His heart fell, though, when two watchers actually entered the cell. They weren't jailhouse guards. In fact, they were the pair he had met before, patrolling the Shadow Market and again on the stairs of the funicular tower: white-haired Okhurokratu and his scar-faced partner-Snellingu, Morlock remembered. Okhurokratu had chains in his hand; Snellingu a drawn sword.

"Be coming along, Khretvarrgliu," said Snellingu.

Morlock rose to his feet, prepared to fight if there was a chance.

But there was no chance. Other guards with clubs entered, and they struck Morlock about the head and shoulders until he lost consciousness.

When he awoke, he was being carried up the long stairs of the funicular tower by the white-haired werewolf and the scar-faced one.

"Are you being awake?" grunted Snellingu. "Why don't you get walking, then?"

"Eh," said Morlock. "Why not?"

He thought there might be more chance for escape while on his own feet, although it turned out he was wrong about that. His right hand was chained to his leg; his legs were chained to each other: there was barely enough slack for him to climb a step at a time. His left hand was free, of course, but there was little it could do. His cloak had been taken, and his ghostly arm was bare to the shoulder, looking strangely insubstantial in the fierce morning sun. They were already halfway up the long tower stairway: there was no chance of his getting away-unless he took the quick route, over the rail. He thought about it coldly, then decided against it. He wasn't the resigned type. He would put them to the trouble of killing him, if there was no other way he could inconvenience them.

He turned his eyes back up the stairwell and met the gaze of the whitehaired guard who was leading the way upward. "That's right!" Okhurokratu said, in a relieved tone. "No point getting us into trouble."

"Don't be trying to be talking him into it," called Snellingu from below.

Morlock said nothing. He thought he heard someone saying, Kree-laow.! Kree-laou ' He looked into an unglazed window as they passed it on the stairwell but could see nothing within: the light difference was like a black curtain.

As they climbed, Morlock kept his eyes on the funicular ways. He would have liked to see the gears within the tower, but he thought he understood how the ropeways worked. There was one upward way and one downward way that were in constant motion. At regular intervals, crews atop the towers attached the rope-woven cars to the upward way and detached them from the downward way.

They finally reached the top. Morlock looked with interest at the crews hitching and unhitching the basketlike cars. When a car came down the way, the crew fixed it to the tower with an anchor like a great hook. The passengers got out and trudged away via the down staircase on the far side of the tower. Then the crew unhooked the car from the ropes and carried it over to the near side of the tower. They anchored it, hooked it to the upward rope, but did not fasten the hitch, so that the funicular ropes ran through the hooks without carrying the car away. They motioned the waiting passengers to embark. The waiting passengers were Morlock and his two guards: the way had apparently been cleared before them.

The crews were looking very unhappy in the fierce light and humid air, but they didn't appear to be slaves.

The guards sat down at some distance from him: white-haired Okhurokratu at the left-hand window, opposite to Morlock, scar-faced Snellingu with his back against the wicker-screened window in the front of the car. They had probably been warned against coming within reach of his ghostly hand. This was wise, as Morlock would certainly use it against them if he could. It had occurred to him that if he could distract one of them with it long enough to get a spear, he might kill them both, in which case matters would be very different indeed. He could not hope for real escape, but he did plan on causing harm to those who would kill him.

Morlock covertly tested the wicker screen on his right by pressing his elbow against it. It didn't give much. Probably it would be difficult to kick one of the guards out without being speared by the other. If he was going to try anything on the funicular, it would be best if he freed his hand first. He thought about the difficult task of teasing forth the wire from the seam while the guards were watching him, and wondered if he could get them to distract each other.

The crew cast off the anchor of the car and simultaneously did something to the hitches, fixing them to the cable leading upward. The car jerked into motion and carried them out over the city.

Morlock asked the watchers, "Are they all free citizens on the roof crews?"

"Yes," Okhurokratu said. "They tried slaves a few times, but it never worked. Not lively enough when it counts. It used to be free workers on every spoke down to the ground, and things worked better then."