James Enge: Blood of Ambrose

Wyrth solemnly saluted the Emperor, and Lathmar suddenly realized that Wyrth was not his subject anymore. His oath had been to the King of the Two Cities; he was not a citizen of the Ontilian Empire. But if he would go along with the gag as long as was necessary, Lathmar reflected, it wouldn't matter.

"As long as everyone else does likewise," he muttered to himself.

"A true Ambrose," Hope observed to Aloe, who was smiling sadly. "Always muttering!"

The dry storm receded, and the dark sky grew silent. In a moment, Morlock thought, he would get up. He would go back to the city. He would retake Aloe to be his wife and replace Ambrosia as the power behind the imperial throne. He would again be the defender of a realm that needed him; his life would have a meaning and a purpose once more. He had succeeded, and the rest would be easy. He could now have back everything he'd thought he'd lost forever. All he had to do was betray the trust of someone who loved him.

In the dead tower of the dead Protector's dead Shadow, Morlock lay among the silent black bodies of the crows-and among silent thoughts that were blacker than crows.

Merlin Ambrosius walked into a cave deep in the Blackthorn Mountains. His tall body was bowed with weariness, not age. He'd had a long trip. He'd had a disappointment or two. He would be right as rain with a little rest. (He loathed rain.)

He sat down next to part of an elderly woman who was lying inside what appeared to be a block of ice. But when you put your hand upon it, as Merlin did, you found it warm as human blood. Nonetheless, it was ice, of a rather special type; it was slowly melting. There were a few drops on the ground underneath its shelf in the wall of the cave; if Merlin stayed for several days, as he planned, he guessed he might see another drop added to the tiny pool.

Merlin, the woman spoke directly into his mind, where have you been?

"Oh," said Merlin airily, "going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it."

Very funny, the woman responded. I suppose that means you have been trying to destroy our children again.

"Nimue, my dear, I have merely engaged in a little experiment. I set a rock spinning down a slope, a couple of centuries ago, and it has turned into a great landslide, engulfing kingdoms."

That means you failed, I suppose.

"It was just a ranging shot," Merlin replied. "I'll do better next time. At least I know where they all are, now."

Why do you hate them so?

Merlin took a while answering. But he told her the truth, since she knew it anyhow. "You should not have loved them better than me. When you betrayed me and I lost everything, I forgave you. I will always forgive you, I suppose. I can even forgive you for loving them. But I don't have to forgive then. I earned your love and they stole it. That's all."

Merlin, the old woman said, we short-lived people are not like you, who live half as long as forever. We give our children life, and love, and then we die. It's the way of things. You should have let nie die long ago.

"Not until this is done."

It will never be done. Don't you see that if you destroy them I'll hate you, rather than love you? Even now you disgust me with your selfish greed, as if love were a treat you could hide from the other children and hoard, wolfing it down in secret until it makes you sick.

Merlin didn't answer this. For one so young (she had been hardly more than a hundred when Merlin had put her in the block of ice and took other even more extreme measures to keep her alive) she was very wise, but she didn't know about the deadly wasting power of time, or the things the mind can do to itself. Her body was frozen, but her mind was awake and unsleeping, one long single day through the centuries.

If need be, he would walk away and not come back until her mind had torn itself to shreds and re-formed anew. She would have forgotten the children; she would have forgotten everything. Then he would return to her. And then she would love him, because she loved life and he would be the only living thing in her world.

Then, and only then, he would thaw the ice and allow her to briefly live and forever die.

On a day, the Emperor Lathmar VII rode through his capital city and saw that things were well, but not well enough. He was glad to hear that the streets were completely free of the songs that claimed the young Emperor had personally defeated the villainous Protector (who was naturally, if somewhat unfairly, blamed for all the undead horror his Shadow had wrought) in single combat on the ramparts of Ambrose. In obedience with Lathmar's decree, no one sang these songs in public anymore. (Ten times as many sang them in secret, and more around the empire would do so every year, but he would never know that.)

The cleansing of the city was almost complete. Whole quarters, overrun by the corpse-golems, had been burned to the ground and would have to be rebuilt. Now they lay under a heavy layer of winter snow, strangely empty and unmarked by all the horror that had passed there-like pages waiting to be written on. It would be Lathmar's job to make something of them, at least write the first few words on those blank sheets, and he was hastily boning up on the principles of architecture and city planning. Fortunately he had (in Morlock and Ambrosia) two of the greatest authorities in the world as his tutors. Unfortunately, he didn't think he would have them much longer.

The weather was cold; times, in many ways, were hard. But the city, freed from the shadows of tyranny and living death, still carried something of a festival air. And the citizens loved it when their ruler rode or walked among them; any conversation he had with anyone was likely to be interrupted with loyal shouts of salute …but just as likely to be broken by cries of, "Get rid of them crooky-backs, Majesty!" The crowd would fall silent whenever he turned toward them after someone cried this; no one would say it to his face.

But it was obvious that most of them felt this way. The Protector was hated above all, but it was widely believed that things had gone worse because he had used the weapons of the Ambrosii against them. The world would be better off without the Ambrosii and their damn magic, people were muttering.

Lathmar rode moodily back to the City Gate of Ambrose. Erl met him there, and they discussed the appointment of the new viceroy of Kaen…. That is, Lathmar discussed it, and when he had given certain orders, Erl said, "Yes, Your Majesty," and carried them out.

Lathmar, feeling lonely, went up to Morlock's workshop. It was empty: most of the stuff had been packed up. Wyrth had been making noises about leaving almost since they had brought Morlock back on a shingle and it became clear he was not going to die.

There had been moments, while Morlock was convalescing, that Lathmar had almost hoped he would die. He was afraid that Morlock would carry out Ambrosia's plan to become the new power behind the throne. And Lathmar wasn't going to allow that. There would be no more powers behind the throne, no more damn Protectors. It was Ambrosia who had cast him in this farce, and he was going to play his part to the hilt; if she didn't like it, she …

Lathmar choked these thoughts off. Morlock, in sentences of one syllable or less, had made it more or less clear to all interested parties that the job of ruling a world-empire was more or less beneath him. He had spoken more frankly in private to Lathmar. "I am a master of the Two Arts-Seeing and Making," he had rasped. "It's enough. It's all that I am." Then, as if that settled the matter, he turned back to his latest feat of making, a magical book in the palindromic script of ancient Ontil.

Lathmar had called him a liar, kissed his terribly scarred face, and run from the room.