Morlock walked closer. He eyed the long lean build of the maker, as much as could be seen in the folds of the long silk gown. He examined the russet hair, the pale mottled features, the dark eyes. Ulugarriu was conscious of his inspection and seemed to enjoy it. The werewolf maker finished the task at hand, gave a satisfied look into the bowl of dreams, and turned to face Morlock.
"I can't tell," Morlock admitted at last. "Which one are you? Are you Hrutnefdhu, or Liudhleeo?"
"I'm both, of course, and others besides."
"God Avenger."
"Please don't talk in that filthy way. I know you don't mean any offense, but still. Foul language upsets me a little."
Morlock shook his head, dismissing the issue. "Both is neither," he said.
"I don't see why. I was really there, you know-all the time."
"Through your meat-puppets. Is that what those things on the field are?"
"In a manner of speaking. The real meat-puppets, as you call them so gracelessly, are the things I make for the were-rats."
"Good of you."
"Were-rats are people, too, and they are often helpful for my purposes, which is more than I can say for some. But the bodies on the asphodel fields I grew from seeds of my own flesh. I let them wander the asphodel fields when I'm not using them, because it's better for them; meat-puppets I keep in vats sealed with gel until they're needed. They're not me. But the simulacra really are me, extensions of myself, and I can direct my intentions through them. And that is how I usually operate: the way we spoke on the airships. It's been ages since my body here has felt the light of the moon or the sun."
"Meat-puppets."
"Shh. You don't really understand yet, Morlock. I was afraid to appear before you through a mere simulacrum-I was afraid your Sight would sense my absence and the game would be over. I don't have much in the way of Sight myself, and I don't fully understand it. In extreme cases, I can have my skull and heart transferred to a simulacrum, and that is how you knew me, as both Liudhleeo and Hrutnefdhu. That was the reason for Liudhleeo's latenight excursions and Hrutnefdhu's habit of early rising-so that I would not have to operate one simulacrum by remote while inhabiting the other. I was afraid your Sight would catch me at it. But if one or both were sleeping, you would not expect them to be fully present."
Morlock closed his eyes, remembering. How often had he seen his two friends together, and awake? Not often, if ever. "God Sustainer. How blind I was."
"Please: I asked you already about the language. And it's not your fault about not seeing. One of my best magics is a kind of indirection, and I deploy it constantly when I'm, you know, up there. It has been very useful in my conflict with, well, certain enemies I shall tell you of."
"You mean the Strange Gods, I suppose."
Ulugarriu's dark eyes glared at him. "God. God damn it. Do you already know every God-bitten thing I was going to tell you? If I'm not a God's brach-bastard of a bastard's brach! God! God! God!"
Morlock disliked to see Ulugarriu upset, probably because he was reminded so much of his two lost friends. He reached out and put his hand on the hysterical werewolf's shoulder.
This calmed Ulugarriu down. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I just had a series of surprises planned, leading to a conversational coup of some importance, and you've screwed my plans already. Well, what else is new? May I ask how you know about the Strange Gods? Have you seen them?"
"At least two. I saw Death in the Bitter Water early last year, and War in the Jail in Wuruyaaria on the day of my execution."
"Oh yes. You killed Wurnafenglu, didn't you? Wish I'd seen that with my own eyes. I hated that evil son-of-a-brach-and-her-bastard."
"Who didn't?"
"He didn't, but he was about it. War and Death, you say? Not Wisdom?"
"Just War and Death. Why?"
"I'm working on a theory about Wisdom, that's all. He ceased appearing in my visualizations some time ago. I think Death may have killed him, which would be very interesting indeed. Do you know anything about their plans for the city?"
"They both said something, but I didn't pay any attention."
"Now that was a mistake, my friend. War is a liar, it's true, and proud of it, which is worse, but on the rare occasions Death speaks it's wise to listen. Even her lies can be revealing, because she's so bad at it."
"I didn't pay any attention because I don't care. If Wuruyaaria is wiped off the map it's nothing to me."
"But …but …your friends live there!"
Morlock met the other maker's eyes. "Not so many as before. And the others can live somewhere else, if need be."
"I knew I should have killed you. I should have outright killed you when I had the chance. You don't care about anyone but yourself. Oh, shut up, Ulugarriu, shut up."
The werewolf maker looked away from Morlock for a time. Eventually Ulugarriu said in a subdued voice, "I know that's not true. I should know. On that night, on New Year's Night, I really thought I was going to die in that stupid corridor. After all my long life, and all the things I'd done, and all the things I still might do, to die that stupid way, because I couldn't nerve myself to run away in front of you and poor Rokhlenu. And you saved me. And I …I …I loved you for that. For other things, too. But to you. To you it was like nothing. It was just a thing that you did, like eating or breathing or cutting your fingernails. On the rare occasions you bother to groom yourself, you ragged bastard."
Morlock found that the enemy he had come to kill was embracing him and sobbing. Ulugarriu's head was pressed against his head as if listening to his heart. Liudhleeo had sometimes done the same. He stood there and waited for the other maker to calm down.
"You really don't know what's going on, do you?" Ulugarriu asked. "Or is it that you don't care? Why don't you ask? Why don't you ask? Don't you care? I know you don't care."
"Ask what?"
"Whether I am male or female."
"Then. Are you male or female?"
"Neither." Ulugarriu looked up into his face and hissed the words. "That's what you'd say. Because both is neither."
"Eh."
Ulugarriu leapt back and laughed bitterly. "Oh, I was wondering where we'd hear that one! Concise, but meaningless, the inarticulate maker's allpurpose reply! Stock up now, folks, supplies are limited! Brilliant! Brilliant!"
He looked at Ulugarriu and shrugged.
"Oh, god. Oh, ghost. Never mind. Yes, my old friend, I was born with both male and female genitalia. But don't worry. My parents followed the traditional practice of giving me before puberty to the ghost-sniffer, who applied the traditional remedy of castrating me with a silver knife and searing the wound with poison. This will normally kill the child, solving the problem for everyone, don't you see, but I was always an inconsiderate brach and I lived. I was afterward some use to the ghost-sniffer, as acolyte and as sexual object, but only when he was too smoke-drunk not to find me disgusting."
Ulugarriu was silent for a time and then said, "I killed them all, of course, in time. My parents, the ghost-sniffer, the females who held me down while he cut me, everyone who watched and laughed and gave helpful advice. They are all dead, and the only reason I regret it is because I can't kill them again and again."
Morlock nodded grimly.
"Oh," said Ulugarriu, "you don't really mean that. What you want to say is-
"I say what I want to say," Morlock interrupted. "What I do not say, I don't want anyone to say for me, particularly when they will blame me for it. You say you are my friends, Hrutnefdhu and Liudhleeo. Would they oblige me in this?"
"Liudhleeo would oblige you in any way at all," said Ulugarriu, "as you know. I am sorry, though. This is how I live, you see: through many masks and under many names. I have not spoken to someone openly, as myself, in oh so long. Except for the Strange Gods, and only then when I couldn't avoid it."
Ulugarriu put a long pale hand over a red mouth and laughed silently. "But it's so funny. You still don't know whether to kiss me or kill me, whether to call me he or she. There's no word for what I am, because all of you pretend I don't exist, that people like me don't exist."