A shared one, of course. Merlin had never been one for sharing out the glory. He cursed a little, shook some ice from his cloak, put his head down and trudged onward into the sharp stinging rain.
Eventually Merlin came to the place where he had first observed Morlock approaching. Then he had to go more slowly, consulting his map of the future every so often. Morlock might be dead, or merely doomed, but his intention still shaped the present and the future. It crossed with Merlin's …there. Down below in the crooked line of pine trees, abristle with heavy spikes of shining ice.
Merlin passed onward cautiously, not just because of the terrain. Morlock was clever enough to have laid traps for Merlin, anticipating this moment. (Not cunning enough to avoid the moment itself: that was reserved for a genius on the level of Merlin himself.)
There were no traps. He came at last to a clearing in the glittering icehung pine trees. The map told him that Morlock's pack was hidden here, but he saw nothing of it. Either it was not here or Morlock had placed a wilderment on it so that it was invisible.
Merlin smiled within the shadows of his cowl. He could go into rapture and use his trans-material senses to see if the pack and (more importantly) Nimue's two lost segments were present. But there were so many risks to this. Morlock and Nimue might be already in rapport, awaiting the chance to capture Merlin's fetch. Morlock might have fashioned some nonmaterial trap out of talic impulses. No, he could not engage in vision until he was surer of his ground.
But no wilderment is perfect. They create visual flaws where they merge with their environment. Merlin walked around the clearing, eyes open for clues: an icicle sparkling on the wrong side in the gloomy day's light, a twig that disappeared midway of its length, a misplaced shadow. Soon he had quite a list, and he charted them on a mental map of the clearing. The center of the wilderment was that locus …there.
Merlin walked toward a pine tree, no more remarkable than any others on the edge of the clearing. He was wary of traps on all sides, but there seemed to be none. He reached down into the space he had calculated as the wilderment's center. His hand disappeared, and simultaneously met the rough surface of Morlock's concealed backpack. He drew in a deep breath and hefted the pack out of the wilderment.
It took a couple of tries. "God Avenger, this thing is heavy," Merlin grunted as he finally dragged the thing into visibility in the unspelled center of the clearing.
His long hands leaped, as if of their own accord, to the lacings of the pack, then halted.
"Caution, caution," Merlin reminded himself. There was no hurry. He would go slow.
It was well he did. The pack was sealed with a spell to prevent theft, and there was a particularly nasty trap inside, for anyone clever enough to pierce the spell. Merlin counter-inscribed the spell and defanged the trap. There seemed to be no other barriers. At last he unlaced the pack and, with trembling fingers, lifted out a blue jar.
The rest he would leave for whoever found it. He scorned to loot the pack of the master of all makers: he was Merlin Ambrosius, and his name did not echo and re-echo down the centuries because he was a successful thief of other men's magic. He had what he wanted.
He was sure of it.
He was almost sure of it.
He kept remembering that empty jar Morlock had taunted him with in Aflraun. This jar was not empty-it had a certain heft to it. He spun it in his hands, and certain irregularities of weight suggested to him that the jar was bigger on the inside than the outside, as it should be if it was the right jar. Yes, this was what he was looking for.
He was sure of it.
He was almost sure of it.
Merlin badly wanted to ascend into visionary rapture and check: if Nimue's shell and impulse-cloud were in the jar, he would know immediately; likewise if they were not.
But he couldn't risk it. He was all too aware that this might be the ultimate trap, baited with exactly what he really wanted. If Morlock and Nimue were in rapport, waiting for him, everything he had done might be for nothing.
He raised the jar up over his head and threw it against a nearby tree root glazed with thick ice.
The ice shattered. The blue glaze on the jar shattered. But the jar itself didn't: it lay there on the ground without a crack.
Merlin nodded. If Morlock had foreseen this moment, he would have made the jar breakable, but with some sort of menace or trap inside. Morlock hadn't. Ergo, Merlin had found the right jar.
He was sure of it.
He was almost sure of it.
Merlin walked over and recovered the jar. He weighed the risks against each other, shook his head, and twisted the cap off.
From the jar's wide mouth flew the indistinct form of a bird, its feathers gleaming with every shade of dim green in the day's dull light. It passed three times around Merlin's head and returned to the mouth of the jar. By then, Merlin had already slumped unconscious to the glittering glazed earth. The jar fell there beside him.
The jar unfolded three long spindly legs from its base. It shook out three long spindly arms from its striated body. The jar-shaped golem rose from where it had fallen and stood uncertainly on the icy ground.
Spindly the arms were, perhaps, but strong. The jar-golem reached down and picked up Merlin's prone body. The jar-mouth, already wide, gaped wider and wider. The jar-golem dropped the sleeping sorcerer into its mouth. Then it clapped the lid back down across its mouth and wrapped its spindly arms tightly around the lid, sealing the container. Its spindly legs crouched down and it waited.
Time passed. Eventually, two women came through the glittering icefanged pinewood.
The jar-golem didn't move. They weren't what it was waiting for.
One woman said to the other, "Should we see if we can help Morlock?"
"Who, dear?" the other replied.
"Morlock."
"That's funny. My son's named Morlock. I've never seen him, not since he was born."
"He was here with us, just a while ago."
"Looking for his horse. Yes, now I remember. I told him to watch out for that troll under the bridge, but he's not one of the world's great listeners, is he, Voin dear?"
"Rhabia. My name is Rhabia."
"Oh, yes. I remember her well. She looked a little like you. Give my regards to her, if you see her. But I have to be getting on, my dear."
"I'd better go with. That's what he's paying me for, anyway."
"Really? How unimaginative of him. Young men in my days had livelier ideas, believe you me. Who is `he,' by the way?"
"Doesn't matter. Are you sure you know where you're going?"
"Oh yes; not a doubt of it. My impulse-cloud and my shell are not very effective at coherent thinking-"
"You don't say."
"I thought I had said it. Oh, Christ, I'm so tired and confused. Never mind: thinking isn't required. I can feel my core-self is near, so near, and I'm tired, so tired. Frightened, too. Can you-can you-?"
The younger woman silently took the arm of the older woman and they passed onward.
The jar-golem waited in the bright clearing under the wet gray sky. Time passed.
Morlock was not expecting the mountain to fall on him and he was utterly unprepared for it.
A glance or two about told him that there was no way to escape the slide entirely. He could make it as far as he could and hope the slide didn't kill him, or …
He curled himself into a ball and summoned visionary withdrawal. He had just ascended to rapture when the avalanche caught him: the sensation was vaguely similar to being kicked by a giant wearing a cotton boot. Then he was above the level of sensation, adrift in the tal-realm.