James Enge - This Crooked Way

The confusion you are feeling are the effects of the antideath spell that Merlin has put on you. You must find a way to break it somehow. The more you remember about Merlin the more impossible this will seem but, trust me, you know a lot of magic yourself. You just have to remember it. Don't be discouraged.

Good luck. I'll be rooting for you!

With sincere self-regard,

NIMUE VIVIANA

Morlock was sitting by the window, rereading this odd letter for the second time, when a shadow fell on the page. He looked up to see his mother standing over him, as filthy as if she had just clawed her way out of the grave, which she evidently had. Her face was twisted with anger, and in her unsteady hands she held the shovel he had buried her with. She lifted the shovel and struck him with it.

The blow fell without much weight; he was more stunned by the event itself. When she began to wrestle the shovel aloft to hit him again, he stood up and took it from her.

"Who are you!" she shouted-an accusation of strangerhood more than a question. "Why are you here, going through my things!" She paused and put a filthy hand to her filthy forehead. "Who am I?" she asked, and it was a real question.

He handed her the letter and stood aside to let her sit by the window.

She read the letter through. "Get me something to write with, won't you, dear?" she said presently.

He already had a wax tablet and stylus in his hand, and he handed them to her. She scratched away for a while on the tablet, then looked at the letter, shrewdly comparing the scripts. "Looks the same," she said to Morlock, finally. "But maybe he wrote the letter. He's a pretty good forger, unless I'm thinking about someone else."

Guessing she meant Merlin, Morlock said, "He'd have told you to trust him."

"Unless he wanted to manipulate me by telling me something, as himself, that he really wanted me to disbelieve. I seem to remember now that he likes these little tricks and disguises and things."

"Yes, but-" Morlock began, and spread his hands.

"-but," she concluded for him, "he can never stand for these little theatrical games to go on for very long. Like any unprofessional actor, his favorite part of any performance is taking his bows. `Oh, Merlin, how clever you are; you've fooled me again.' Asshole."

"Yes."

"I can see you know him well. Even if you don't say much, and you slouch. Stand straight, young man."

"I'm as straight as I'll ever be," Morlock replied sharply.

She glanced at him with a watery gray eye. "Oh? Are you one of then? The Ambrosii?"

"Yes."

"Which one?"

Reluctantly, he said, "Morlock."

She took it without flinching. "Well. We meet at last, eh? Not one for sentimental reunions, are you?"

"No."

"Good. I let Merlin think I was crazy about you because it seemed to irritate him, but it would be awkward to assume a doting-mother-with-dutifulson act this late in our respective lives, wouldn't it? It was different with my daughters. I actually knew them. Are they still …?"

"They were fine when I last saw them, early in winter."

"Who's in charge? Has Hope taken over?"

"Ambrosia is usually in charge."

"Still? Must be getting a little elderly, though. Thought Hope would show a little more backbone by now. Anyone would get tired of being pushed around by Ambrosia for-"

"I am very fond of Ambrosia," he interrupted her.

"Oh, who isn't? She sees to that. Never mind. I love them both better than you ever will, young man."

"Mother," he said (the word coming rather awkwardly to his lips), "I am over four hundred years old."

"What!" she shouted, then sat there bemused for a while, her lips twitching as if she were talking to herself, but no words could be heard.

"I suppose you must be," she said aloud at last. "Yes, it is starting to come back to me, I guess. I really thought I had beaten him, this timethought I'd broken his antideath spell and I really was going to go west. Then this young fellow came to the door and I asked him to bury me-oh, that was you, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"You were looking for your horse. Did you ever find it?"

"Merlin took him."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. You should see what he does with animals in his workshops; says it's all part of his craft of lifemaking. Cruelty, I call it. Was it a nice horse?" she asked wistfully.

"Not very, but we've been through a lot together."

"That's what you said last time-have we had this conversation before?"

"Part of it."

"You must pardon me, young man; I'm almost completely crazy. What was your name again?"

"Is that part of the antideath spell?"

"Is what? The craziness? Yes, exactly. I'm not all here, in any sense of the words. Merlin cut my selfhood in three parts and hid them from each other."

"Oh?"

"Don't believe me?" She shrugged and reached up both hands to the back of her head. She undid something there, and then abruptly turned her head inside out. There was no skull or apparently any sort of bone or organ inside the empty skin, at least as far as he could see down the fleshy tunnel of her throat. The inner surface of her skin did display a large number of maggots, however.

He was deeply horrified, but he tried not to show it. "No bones, eh?" he remarked.

"No nothing: just my shell," her voice replied, somewhat muffled.

"I suppose some spell transmitting magnified talic impulses provides the equivalent of skeletal support and organic functions?"

"I guess so," she said, refolding her head so that her face reappeared. "He wouldn't tell me about it-I suppose he thought I'd try to counter-inscribe the spell somehow. Which I have, a few times, but nothing seems to work."

"Hm. Er-"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, don't grunt at me. What is it?"

"You seem to have-there's an infestation of…"

"The maggots, you mean? Well, well, quite the observant one, aren't we? Yes, young fellow, one of the hazards of perpetually dying is the occasional infestation, as you so sweetly put it, of maggots."

"If you rinse yourself out with salt water, that may clear them away."

"If it were that easy-Salt water, you say?"

"Yes."

"Sting, won't it?"

"It won't kill you."

"Is that supposed to be funny? Oh, never mind; I guess it is, sort of."

"Where's the rest of you?"

"Which one of us is crazy, anyway? Haven't you been listening? I don't know. I'm just the shell of myself. There are three of me now: my shell, my impulse-cloud, and my core self. If there is a way for me to know where they are, I don't know it. I don't know half of what I used to know, and what I do know I often can't remember."

"But he couldn't have done this unless …" Morlock broke off.

But she had heard. "Unless I consented?" she asked. "Ah, but I did consent. Of course I did. Young man-what's your name?"

"Morlock."

"Morlock. That was my son's name. I haven't seen him since the day he was born, and yet sometimes I feel that I loved him the most of all my children. When-"

"Enough of that. Merlin's not here."

"Yes, perhaps you're right. Anyway, have you ever been in imminent danger of death?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Good. Excellent. Well: wouldn't you have done anything, absolutely anything in that moment to go on living?"

"No."

"What? You're lying."

"No."

"I can take your word on that, can I, Epimenides? Well, anyway, I was on the point of death, and he talked nae into it. I was afraid, and he …he said he could cure death and even the common cold if he had enough time-this was just a temporary measure. A temporary measure. Do you know how long it's been since then?"

"If he built the house for this purpose: between one hundred fifty and two hundred years."

Nimue looked at him with somber gray eyes and said in a subdued voice, "That's about right. Say, you sounded a bit like him, just then. You're not him in disguise, are you? What's your name?"