Blood Of Ambrose Part 25

"What are you?"

Many.

"What does that mean?"

You will know-very soon now.

The King found that he had taken a step nearer the thing.

"How do you speak?" he wondered.

The same way that you do-with your mouth.

Lathmar realized that this was true-that the thing had been answering all the time through his own mouth, through his own voice.

Except that it wasn't his anymore. He found that out when he saw that he was taking another step toward the bound s.h.i.+elds. He tried to stop, but couldn't.

He tried to scream, but the other one of him, the one that was many, laughed. It came out as a laughing scream, and the world began to fade before Lathmar's eyes. Through the mist masking the world he saw his hands reaching out toward the gra.s.s that bound the s.h.i.+elds.

Then someone else was beside him, a pillar of black-and-white flames: Morlock.

Get out! Morlock shouted, and one of him wailed and another sobbed with relief, and abruptly there was only one of him again, and he fell to his knees beside the bound s.h.i.+elds.

Groggily, he rose to his feet. Morlock (the plain Morlock of the nonvi- sionary world, his dark faced creased with urgency) seized him by the shoulders and said, "What is your name?"

"The King," he said sleepily.

Morlock grabbed Lathmar by the hair; his gray eyes stabbed at the King like spear points. "What's your name?" he shouted.

The King understood, hazily, that Morlock was afraid, and he thought this was interesting, as he could not remember another occasion where Morlock had so obviously shown fear. He thought about the other self, the one that had almost mastered him, and he understood what Morlock was afraid of. "Lathmar," he said, as clearly as he could, desperately hoping he would be believed.

Morlock, his dark face a mask of relief, released him. He patted him awkwardly on the shoulders and said, "Good. I'm glad you're well. You're not ready to face things like that, yet."

"What is it?"

"A shathe," Morlock said flatly.

Behind him, Ambrosia said, "Of course! There were shathe-wards on the old bridges, but we didn't think to put them on the new bridges. When was the last time a shathe was seen in Ontil?"

"This morning. That was why I sent Wyrth off to the City Gate and Thorngate. He can set wards that will hold until you and I come to put in place more permanent protections."

"You should have consulted me," Ambrosia said. "We each could have gone to a gate."

"I thought I might need you here," Morlock said.

The King drew a deep breath. The mist was gone from his sight; the living world pressed against his senses. Beyond Morlock was Ambrosia, and beyond her were the twelve Royal Legionaries, foremost among them Karn the secutor. His eyes pleaded silently with the King. Lathmar turned away deliberately to glance at the black horse, still standing guard on the bridge over the river Tilion.

"You were too cautious, Councillor Morlock," he said aloud.

"Was I so?" Morlock replied, smiling wryly.

"Yes, indeed. We didn't need Ambrosia, and we needed you only as an exorcist. Your charger and I were enough to hold the bridge against our enemies. He is worth at least a dozen of the Royal Legionaries, if I could pick the dozen."

"He will be flattered to know you rate him so highly," Morlock said, clearly noting the King's underlying anger but puzzled by it.

"I rate him more highly than that," the King continued. "If my Lady Regent is guided by my advice, she will appoint this horse to the rank of secutor at least." Then he turned and met Karn's eye at last.

"Oh," said Ambrosia coldly, "is that how it is?"

"Yes."

"I wondered when I glanced in and saw you all loitering in the guard station."

"Some of us were loitering more intensely than others, Grandmother."

"All right, you men: put aside your weapons," Ambrosia directed.

They were a dozen and she was one, but they clearly didn't even think of disobeying. They disarmed themselves and trooped up the stairs to the upper chamber of the inner guardhouse at Ambrosia's direction. She bolted the door shut behind them and shouted out to the King and Morlock, "I'm going to find some live soldiers. You two wait here for me."

Morlock nodded casually and guided the King over to the bridge. The black, silver-eyed stallion cantered over, and Morlock introduced him.

"Lathmar, Velox. Velox, this is Lathmar."

"Is this the horse you flew out of the Dead Hills?" the King asked eagerly.

"I think so. He is not quite as I last saw him, years ago, but he has had some remarkable experiences since then, perhaps enough to account for the changes."

"Does he still fly?"

"Not literally. But I've never seen a faster horse. It's thanks to him I was back in time."

"And when you arrived you found the shathe," Lathmar said flatly.

"Yes."

When it was evident that this was all Morlock was going to say, Lathmar asked, "What's a shathe?"

"A shathe," Morlock said didactically, "is a being that has no corporeal presence. It exists entirely in the tal-realm. It can exert its will on the physical universe, and manifest itself in various ways, but it can't be killed by any material weapon or force."

"How can they be killed?"

"By nonmaterial force. They can be starved to death also."

"Have you ever killed a shathe?"

"Twice that I know of. I kill them when I can, bind them when I must."

"Why?" the King asked. "Is it a religious ... ?"

"Because they are evil?" Morlock twisted his face wryly. "They may be. But it doesn't matter: I kill them anyway."

"Why?"

"You have not considered, Lathmar. These things can be starved to death. They live on the tal-plane, and matter does not affect them. What do you suppose they eat?"

Lathmar shook his head.

"Souls. The psyches of living beings able to take volitional action."

"Oh." Lathmar thought about how close he had been to releasing the thing trapped in the s.h.i.+elds. "Oh. How?"

"They gain entry to the will by persuading their prey to do certain things. It doesn't matter what, as long as it is at the prompting of the shathe. The moment of greatest danger is when the prey accepts a favor from the shathe. Then the prey may find that his will is no longer his own. It is then an easy thing for the shathe to compel the prey to destroy himself."

"Was I in that state?"

"I think so."

"But I never-"

"Tell me what happened," Morlock directed.

The King obliged, telling the tale from when he took to the pa.s.sages. Morlock heard him through and said, "That was a good thought, to take the secret ways. I guess it was the shathe who gave you the idea to pose as a simulacrum of yourself."

"Why?" Lathmar demanded, annoyed. "Too clever for me?"

"No. But you said, 'There are many of us.' That was what the shathe told you his name was."

"Oh." Lathmar's anger deflated. "That's true."

"And it appalled Steng, you say?"

"Yes."

"Hm."

Lathmar waited a few moments, then observed, "Whether you are my magical tutor or merely my councillor here, 'Hm' seems insufficient."

Morlock smiled a crooked smile. "I was wondering if the shathe knew that it would affect Steng the way it did."

"I can't say."

"Perhaps we'll look into that."

"How ... how did you bind it?"

"You're not ready for that knowledge yet, Lathmar."

"I'm not asking for a page from your spellbook. I just wonder how it was done-how gra.s.s can bind the thing."

"Plants have a kind of tal," Morlock replied. "But it is impenetrable by shathes, because plants have no volition. It is by seducing the will that shathes obtain control over the tal of living beings."

"Then how could it reach me?"

"I think you reached it," Morlock admitted grudgingly. "Your Sight reached out intuitively, as you were grasping for solutions to your dilemma."

"Oh." Lathmar paused, then remarked, "Grandmother wants you to stop teaching me about the Sight."

"That's not possible. You must obtain control over your gift."

Earlier today the King would have been delighted to hear this. Now, thinking about the thing that had nearly devoured him, that had reached him through his own power of Sight, he wasn't so sure. Then, abruptly, he was sure. True, he would have preferred to live in a world where such dangers didn't exist. But since they did exist, he decided he wanted to know about them, and what he could do about them. Maybe someday he could save someone as Morlock had saved him.

He looked up to find Morlock's gray eyes on him.

"Do you know what I am thinking?" he asked, feeling himself blush.

Morlock shrugged. "Some I know. More I guess. Most is closed to me. Here's Ambrosia."

The regent had returned with a troop of soldiers; the King turned to her almost in relief. She disposed some of the Royal Legionaries at the gate, charged others with escorting the imprisoned guards down to the dungeon level, and a.s.signed one to feed and water and otherwise tend to "that d.a.m.n horse-I hope Morlock doesn't start filling up the entire castle with his pets."

The King looked around to see how Morlock would react to this, but saw that Morlock and the shathe he had bound were gone.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

DEATH, LOVE,.

AHD A SPIDER.

he trial of the eleven Royal Legionaries (before the regent in the presence of her council, only Morlock being absent) didn't take a great deal of time. The evidence showed that they had all obeyed their superior, Secutor Karn, in taking to the guard station and concealing themselves. But they had also failed to obey a royal councillor and the King himself when they had been given contrary orders.

"Respect for a superior officer is a fine thing," the regent remarked, in delivering her summary judgement. "But secutors don't rank members of the Regency Council, much less the King. These soldiers chose to obey the dictates of their cowardice. Given that they were following an illegal order of a superior officer, I'll incline to the lesser penalty. Commander Erl," she said, addressing the Legionary officer in charge of the dungeons, "have your men strip these prisoners of their uniforms, beat them each with twenty strokes, and expel them into the city. They are never to hold any position of trust or profit under his Majesty Lathmar the Seventh. So say I, Ambrosia Viviana, regent for the aforesaid Lathmar VII, King of the Two Cities. Let it be done."

The dungeon keepers, grim in their black surcoats with no device, marched the dumbfounded ex-soldiers out of the council chamber. Karn was left alone in the plain brown robe of the accused, facing the Regent's Council who would judge his fate.