James Enge - This Crooked Way

That was when the answer came to him.

After drawing a bucket of water from the well, Morlock broke the chain and carried the bucket to the top of the hill. He left it there to collect moonlight for the rest of the night.

Walking back down the slope, he numbered the things he'd need: two clay jars, a sheet of sealing wax, a lump of twilight, a rock, a fire.

The fire he could make later; the twilight-shadow he could collect around dawn. He had a wax tablet, for making notes, in his backpack; that would do for a seal. He also had a Perfect Occlusion in his pack: it established a zone that no light could enter or leave, unless the light source was physically carried in or out. (It was a little tricky to set one up so that the inside remained perfectly dark, but of course he didn't mind a little ambient moon light for the project he had in mind.) The stone he could get anywhere; it need have no special properties except a certain shape and size.

He set up the occlusion by the wolfbane-lined hedge, laying it out in a flat space and staking down its seven corners with spikes of native rock. Then he went off to see about jars.

The ones the listener had been using in his living area were irretrievably contaminated and useless for Morlock's purposes. He decided to make his own, and searched out the listener's clay pit. There, to his surprise, he found several clay pots and jars, finished and set out to dry. They were rather weathered (as if the listener had made them some time ago and forgotten about them) but perfectly sound. Morlock trudged with them to the stream and back (there being no spare bucket for the well).

When he returned, long before dawn, the occlusion had established itself. He had found a good stone at the stream, too: about the size of his fist and approximately the same shape, but smooth from long years in the streambed. He dropped it beside the occlusion and climbed the hill to collect the bucket of water, now drenched with implicit moonlight.

He covered the bucket with the wax tablet (he had nothing else that would do), brought it down, and set it by the occlusion. Then he dug a pit in the turf and started a fire. Once the fire was going well, he planted three stones around it and settled the bucket on them, over the fire.

Morlock watched the bucket closely, waiting for the water to boil. Once it did, steam would upset the cover and that was bad. Moonlight would escape and, worse, firelight might enter. Fire destroys moonlight whenever they make contact, as does any light (except starlight, the most fragile and subtle of lights).

As intently as he watched, he almost missed the moment. The bucket, after muttering and shaking itself from the heat, suddenly grew quiet. A moment later, a puff of boiling steam shot forth from between the metal rim and the melting wax of the tablet. It was irradiated by a bolt of white-hot moonlight. Morlock slapped the tablet down against the bucket rim and snatched the bucket from the fire with his free hand. (It was hot, but it took a considerable fire to annoy Morlock; that was the destiny of his blood.) He leapt into the zone of Perfect Occlusion.

Water was still bubbling through the semiliquid surface of the wax tablet, but no light accompanied it. Morlock took the wax tablet away and was pleased to see a considerable mass of cooling but still white-hot moonlight slumped in the bottom of the bucket. It looked almost dense enough to work it with his fingers.

Morlock, of course, did not risk this. He set the bucket down, sat down himself, and, clasping his hands, summoned the rapture of vision.

He reached out with the monochrome flames of his tal-self and worked the white-hot cooling moonlight into a sheet. Then he creased the sheet and folded it. He creased it again and folded it. And again and again: more than thirty times, until the sheet had become a long, thin dense strip of moonlight, narrowing to a point. It was still malleable, the hot orange color of a setting moon. In a perfect world he would have preferred to reheat it, but Morlock was a realist. He picked up the strip of moonlight and plunged it into a jar of cool water, where its radiance instantly became a brittle wintry blue.

Leaving it there, Morlock drew Tyrfing and stepped out of the Perfect Occlusion. The time was just before dawn. Morlock cut himself a suitable lump of twilight shadow from the hill's silhouette just before the sun rose on the opposite horizon. Quickly hiding the shadow under his cloak to protect it from daylight, Morlock sheathed Tyrfing and dismissed the rapture.

The weight of the world fell across his crooked shoulders. He had been in the visionary state for hours. And the worst of it was, he knew he had many hours to go before he could sleep.

When Morlock lifted his head he saw the listener standing not far away. The darkness, once symmetrical, now seemed to be sending out shoots or pseudopods into the right side of the listener's face. His nose had wholly disappeared, and this (along with the pinched fleshless character of his visible features) gave his face a skull-like appearance-not even a whole skull: a skull drenched in quicklime so that part of it was eaten away. The listener, Morlock guessed, hadn't long to live.

"Didn't you hear me?" the listener's second voice was demanding. He sounded peevish, like a sick weary child.

"No," Morlock admitted.

"I said that …I'm sorry about last night. The darkness …that is, the voice explained-"

Morlock waved him to silence. "Tell me later," he said. "I'm busy." He turned away and walked back to the Perfect Occlusion, bright blue in reflection of the morning sky. Glancing back, he found the listener had followed him.

"What is that?" the listener asked, eyeing the occlusion.

"Part of what I'm doing."

"Is it …?" the listener said, both eager and anxious, "Is it …another idea?"

"I'll tell you if it works," Morlock replied sharply.

The listener's less-than-half-face looked hurt. Morlock was angry at the listener for being so oppressively weak, but he was also angry at himself for giving way to his irritation.

"Look," he said finally, "you seem tired. Why don't you go to sleep?"

The listener nodded slowly, with his skull-like less-than-a-face. He turned away and stumbled wearily up the hill.

Morlock stepped into the Perfect Occlusion, now lit within by brittle blue light. He drew the chunk of twilight from under his cloak and the strip of moonlight from the jar of cool water. He spent the rest of the day sharpening its edge on the lump of shadow.

Just after sunset, Morlock carried two jars of water up to the listener's cave. One was hot-just off the fire, in fact. One was cold, just drawn from the well (with the restored bucket and chain). Under one arm was the wax tablet.

The listener was still sleeping. Morlock put the two jars of water by the listener's pallet and dropped the wax tablet in the hot water to soften it. Then he returned to the Perfect Occlusion.

When he reentered the cave, he held the blade of moonlight in his right hand, the stone in the left. Dropping the stone next to the jars, he lifted the shining insubstantial blade and cut open the listener's chest.

He could hardly see the listener's heart, tangled about as it was with tendrils of invading darkness. The heart is the source or entry point of human tal; it would naturally be the focus of the darkness' attack, but would hold out until the end.

The end was dreadfully near. The listener's insides were rotten with darkness. Morlock clenched his teeth and reached through the tendrils of darkness until his fingers closed on the breathing fist-sized heart. He drew it out between the pale slats of the listener's ribs.