He tried it again, and this time the twine loop fell across the top of the lock-bar on its far end. Morlock jostled the loop gently, and it fell across the end of the lock-bar. He was ready.
He looked up and saw that Khretnurrliu was staring at him. The dead wolf's severed head had opened its mouth in anticipation; the headless body was leaning forward, like a dog straining at an invisible leash. The dead werewolf was waiting for him.
He let one end of the twine go and drew it unobtrusively back into the cell. Khretnurrliu's dead body sat back and the severed head tilted; it seemed disappointed in Morlock. So was Morlock. But he just couldn't face the dead wolf. He had already killed it once. How long was he supposed to go on killing it? Maybe it was Rokhlenu's turn.
He sidled over to Rokhlenu and said, "Hey."
"Hey," Rokhlenu replied wearily. "Long time no smell."
"Rokhlenu."
"Morlock."
"Rokhlenu."
"Morlock."
"Rokhlenu."
"Stop saying that. There's no one else here. You can just say what you have to say."
"What would you do if you got out of here?"
Rokhlenu seemed surprised and pleased. "You sound a little more like yourself today. And, it's funny: I was just thinking about that-the minor moons know why; I don't. But I'd probably go to the outlier pack, south of Wuruyaaria. I can send word to my father and brothers-" He continued for a while in this vein.
Morlock twitched impatiently. This was too long term, too strategic. Morlock was asking about the immediate, the tactical situation. But he didn't know the words for this.
"I mean here and now," he said finally, interrupting Rokhlenu's daydream. "What would you do here and now if you got out of here?"
Rokhlenu caught his meaning. His breath grew short. "I suppose …take out the one on the left with the thing." The thing was what they usually said when referring to the strangling cords, when they had still been talking about them.
"What about Khretnurrliu?" Morlock whispered. "What could you do about Khretnurrliu?"
Rokhlenu slumped a little. The hope went out of his face. He looked directly into Morlock's worried eyes and said, "Nothing. I would do nothing about Khretnurrliu. I'm sick of hearing about him. He's dead, Morlock. Dead."
Morlock was troubled. He'd had a fairly sophisticated argument planned, given his still-primitive vocabulary of Sunspeech, all of it leading toward the proposition that Morlock would tackle the two living guards, if Rokhlenu confronted the dead wolf. He was going to explain about ghost binding and the twine and everything. But now it seemed there would be no point.
Morlock went back to his corner by the door and thought. He rocked back and forth; he clenched and unclenched his muscles and he thought. The guards didn't look at him. Rokhlenu had climbed up to the window and was staring out into the hot afternoon air. Even Khretnurrliu seemed to be looking away scornfully.
Morlock sat wrestling with the dread of the dead wolf the rest of that afternoon, all through the night, all through the next day until dark. In the end he came to the conclusion that it was safer to stay in the cell and not try to get out. This was his life now. He could endure it, if he could not love it.
Except that was not quite the end. Because …it wasn't just that he didn't love this life. He hated it. He hated the raiders who had inflicted it on him. He hated the ghost-sniffers who had driven the spike into his head, blinding him to the world of dreams. He hated the guards and their stupid tortures and rapes. Most of all he hated his hate: he hated the stink of it in his mind, the filth of it in his eyes and bones. What hell could the dead wolf inflict on him that was worse than this? And he was inflicting it on himself. He could make it end now, one way or the other.
He, of course, didn't have the courage, but he had known a man once who would never have given up, would never have inflicted this on himself if he had the chance to escape it, even by certain death, who never resigned himself to fate. That man had drowned …in the Bitter Water, he thought; he couldn't remember his name, unless …unless it was Morlock.
Bells began to ring, as if in answer to this appalling conjecture. Morlock looked up. Khretnurrliu stood in man form in the corridor, tossing his severed head from hand to skeletal hand as if it were a ball. The guards were staring down the corridor, a faint silver light shining on their faces. The one in the day shape raised his hands and underwent the transition to wolfhood, screaming in ecstasy and pain. Rokhlenu was at the cell window, reaching out his left hand for a single thread of moonlight as he gripped the sill with his right. He transformed abruptly to wolf, howling as he fell down into the cell's darkness.
Other werewolves were howling, up and down the corridor. And bells were ringing. Echoing faintly in through the windows, louder in the corridor, mixed with the despairing howls of prisoners, the joyous or merely drunken howls of guards.
It was the first night of the year, the night of Cymbals they called it in Morlock's distant home. Trumpeter and Chariot were setting, and Horseman was rising. A bright year, they would be calling it back home, since the first call would not be moonless. In dark years, all three moons set together and the night sky was dark and starlit until Trumpeter rose again.
Back home, the celebration would go on all night.
A long, joyous, noisy time.
Would these moon-worshipping werewolves celebrate less or more?
In any case, they were celebrating now. Loudly. Joyously.
God Avenger, thought Morlock, the thin fraying thread that was still Morlock in his madness, this is my hour. I will celebrate the New Year in a way the Sardhluun will never forget.
From where he sat he tossed the twine over the end of the lock-bar and caught it. He stood, hefting the lock-bar from its place. It fell ringing to the floor, one more bell welcoming in the new year. Morlock threw the gate open and strode across the threshold of the cell. The wolf-guards, startled, turned to meet him. But for them it was already too late: they had seen their last moonrise.
Chapter Eleven: New Year's Night
Morlock was achingly conscious that he was turning his back toward the dead man who had haunted him all these weary months, but that was the choice he made: not to be bound by his fear.
He stooped down to seize the iron lock-bar from the corridor floor. One of the guard-wolves was already leaping toward him; the other, the one who had just undergone transition, was struggling in the harness of his human armor.
Morlock swung the iron bar with all the unpent fury of his madness.
The guard-wolf's head shattered like a piece of ripe fruit. The body rolled to the floor and lay still. Morlock turned to silence the other guard, who had begun to yammer for help in Moonspeech, but he had only taken one step when a gray shadow streaked past him and fixed long white teeth in the guard-wolf's throat.
Morlock seized the guard's abandoned sword and severed its head from its body as Roklenu jumped nimbly out of the blade's path.
Rokhlenu gave Morlock an agreeable but bloody smile. He wished Morlock a happy New Year in singing Moonspeech.
" Khule gradara!" Morlock replied. "That's what we say back home: goodbye moons!"
The other guards were crowded by the window at the far end of the hallway, peering out at the last moonlight they would see for some time. Those who could change had already changed to the night shape. Those few in the day shape held out their hands wistfully, or drank smoke from great stone bowls, or just stared at the free air as if they hated the prison as much as Morlock did.
Rokhlenu looked slyly at the severed head and back at Morlock's free hand.
Morlock grinned in answer. He picked up the severed wolf head and hurled it down the hallway to land in the mournful celebration of guards. It struck one guard on the elbow while he was inhaling some smoke. The coalladen jar shook, spilling some fiery matter. The jostled guard turned and struck the wolf nearest him across the snout. It yowled a curse at him and bit him on the knee. The jar dropped and smashed on the ground, scattering smoke and fire. The fire burned many feet, and a cacophonous chorus of rage sprang up against the background of bells and wolfsong floating in on the evening air. The guards were embroiled in a general fight before Morlock and Rokhlenu reached them, the severed wolf head being kicked here and there by heedless feet in smoky chaos.