James Enge - This Crooked Way

"Maybe I should have called it `Merlin's tongue,"' Morlock replied.

"Good God, how unkind," Aurelius said, now very much at ease. "What would Old Father Tyr say if he heard you talking that way to your ruthen father?" He snapped his fingers, and Zyrn appeared from the half-hidden doorway. "Are you sure you won't have something to wet your throat? I can see this is going to be a long conversation."

Morlock looked at Zyrn's face, which Aurelius (or Merlin?) had yet to do in my presence. Morlock said to his father (ruthen father: I think that means natural father, as opposed to harven-the foster father who raises you), "The conversation needn't be long. I just came to see that Naeli wasn't poisoned again."

Aurelius/Merlin shook his head irritably. "We've been over that, and we're friends now-I think I can say that, Naeli?"

"You may," I said. "I won't."

"Well," the old man said, "I myself feel the need of a little something. Zyrn-"

"Zyrn," Morlock interrupted, "would you be free?"

The waiter's flat pebble-like eyes fixed on Morlock's. "Master?"

°I am not your master," said the crooked man. "Would you be free?"

The pebble-like eyes flicked from Morlock to Aurelius to Morlock again. "Master. Yes, master."

Morlock stood and, reaching his fingers into Zyrn's tightly bound hair, ripped something loose. A little blood came with it, and Zyrn fell sobbing to his knees. Morlock dropped the thing in his hand on the ground and crushed it with his heel. Zyrn leaped to his feet and ran away laughing hysterically into the marketplace crowd.

"You insolent little prick," the old man said, all pretence of civility dropped. He clapped his hands and the table was all of a sudden surrounded by armed men.

"This man offends me," the old man said. "I'll pay the usual fee."

"We fight," said one of the armed men, tapping Morlock on the chest. "Get me? Bring your sword. No need to be splashing your greasy gut-stuff on everyone's table."

"I am Morlock Ambrosius."

Five or six of the armed men looked at Morlock, looked at Aurelius, and walked away from the table.

But the one who had challenged Morlock wasn't fazed.

"I figure it is you," the challenger said. "The old man, he is always complaining about you. You are a bad fellow, I think, very greasy. Besides, I see your painting down to the Mainmarket Justiciar's House. I know it is you. Kreck, you are even uglier in person. I spit on your ugly face. I spit on your ugly mother. She krecks with dogs, I think. Ugly ones, the only ones that will take her. You get me? We fight. My name-"

"I don't care what your name is."

"My name soon to be famous, dripping with moist gradient. Also, the old man will pay me good. Money and gradient! Yoy and yur!"

"Eh," said Morlock, which I guess was his valuation of money and gradient, if not yoy and yur (whatever they are). He reached for the sword belt hanging from the chair.

"That is a magical weapon, not to be used in a formal duel," old Aurelius said sharply.

"You hear?" said Morlock's challenger, tapping him on the chest. "This formal duel, not informal, like that night when the swineherds taught you how bittersweet love can be, ha ha. I always kill in the formal way, for the juicier gradient. I am very correct, unlike your moldy flea-bitten sister who cools her feverish oft-travelled rump in muddy swamps."

"You win duels with that abuse?" Morlock asked, apparently with real interest.

"Some," said the challenger. "More than a few. People get mad and I get them. Others think I'm stupid and I get them. Shik! Shik! I always win, because people think me stupid."

"Eh. I think you're stupid, too," Morlock admitted. "Can someone loan me a sword?" he said to the crowd of bravoes standing around. "I'll gift them with whatever gradient I earn by killing Shik-Shik here."

The armed men-I saw two or three of them were women, actually-all looked a little nervous. One of them reluctantly offered Morlock a short single-edged blade.

Morlock checked its balance and weight, shrugged, and said, "Thanks."

The combatants moved out to the cool red sunlight of the open marketplace to conduct their highly formal duel. The bravoes who weren't fighting formed a ring: this would be a well-witnessed fight, anyway. Marketeers with nearby carts irritably tossed canvas tarps over their goods to protect them from the inevitable blood.

I turned back to the old man who was watching with cool amusement. "Do you really think Shik-Shik is going to kill Morlock?" I asked.

"It's too much to hope for," said Morlock's father. "But you know what? I killed Stador."

"What do you mean?" I whispered.

"I need you to be a little quicker than that, Naeli, because we don't have much time. We talked about responsibility once. I am responsible for your son Stador's death. I wasn't trying to kill him, of course-I was trying to kill Morlock."

"You weren't even there."

"That's the genius of it! I don't think you truly appreciate my genius, Naeli. I didn't need to be there. I didn't even need to be alive. For over a generation I sent nightmares about Morlock to that poor insect who eventually became Math Valone. I fashioned him, and through him Valona's Horde, to be a weapon to strike down Morlock should he pass through the Kirach Kund on a mission which displeased me. When he did so, the trap snapped shut. Morlock, unfortunately, got away, but you and your family were caught and mauled in it. Stador was killed; you and others were mutilated; no one escaped unscathed, not even that delightful young girl whom you have labored so long to protect and who now suffers from such horrible nightmares. For all this, I am responsible. Do you believe me? It is important that you believe me."

"It seems …possible."

"That's enough, I think. Do you imagine that we have grown so close, in the two or three conversations we have had, that I will hesitate to do the same thing again, if ever I get the chance?"

"No. I don't suppose you will."

"Right! Exactly! Your family is nothing to me! As long as you travel with Morlock, as long as you are on terms with him, you and your family are in danger. I will destroy them, not out of malice, but simply to get at Morlock. The only way clear is to make a clean break. Help me, and you are out of the danger zone. He won't want to have anything to do with you, even if he does live, and you won't be in danger from me anymore."

"So everything you said before was a lie."

"Not everything," said the old man cheerfully. "I really am trying to save my dear wife's life. This Shik-Shik is doing better than I had imagined."

I turned to look at the duel. Shik-Shik had the longer blade and he was trying to make the most of it with showy cuts and stabs. Morlock kept retreating in a fairly narrow circle, his pale eyes cool and concentrated. I had seen my share of life-and-death battles, and in my view Morlock was taking the measure of his opponent.

I turned back to the old man who had risen to his feet and was holding the blue-glazed jar. It was capped, and he was shaking it gently.

"Remember what I've said, Naeli," the old man said. "I don't ask you to blame Morlock, although some people would look askance on a son trying to kill his mother. The point is that danger surrounds him and he can't help it. I can help it, but I won't. You'll have to make a choice about what's more important to you, your family or Morlock. And we already know what that choice will be."

He tossed the jar on the ground and it shattered. It was just a broken jar; there were no old ladies inside.

"I thought that was probably a ruse," he said. "At least I'll have Tyrfing…."

He moved around the table to lift Morlock's sword belt from the chair. As I watched him move, I realized something. His shoulders were as crooked as Morlock's, if not more so. But he stood, and wore his heavy cloak, to disguise it.