Part 8 (1/2)
”Yes! He was so clever. And I didn't notice: he never said it was a lifespell or a youth-spell. It prevents death, but doesn't really permit life.”
”And you want to break the spell.”
The old woman was silent for a time. ”Sometimes I do. When I remember. Then I'm desperate to. But. The other parts of me. They drag me back to life. Anyway. I don't want to die. I just want to be. I just want to be nae again, alive, and whole, and in one place, even if I die the next second.”
”You probably will.”
”Doesn't matter. I don't expect you to understand.”
Morlock stared glumly out the window for a moment or two, considering the path that had led him here. At last he said, ”I can probably arrange that.”
”What?”
”I can bring the separate segments of your self to the same location. They will reunite and I suspect you will die shortly thereafter.”
”Heh. He won't love you for it. Merlin, I mean.”
”He hates me already.”
”Oh? Then we shall be friends. What's your name?”
”Morlock Ambrosius. I'm your son.”
”That explains why you'd bother, then. Excuse me, young man, I have to go down to the lake and wash. I've gotten all dirty somehow.”
”Don't forget the salt.”
”The salt. Oh, that's right. My son was just here telling me about maggot infestations, the insolent son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h, and I should know. Or was that a dream?”
Morlock didn't answer, and Nimue, taking a basin and a block of salt, went down to the lake behind the cottage. Morlock went down to the bridge. As soon as he stepped onto it, the troll appeared again and landed on the bridge ahead of him.
”Now I've got you!” the troll shouted.
”I still haven't crossed the bridge without permission,” Morlock pointed out.
”No, but you will.”
”I was going to, yes. I wanted to go into the woods and feed deeply and richly on walnuts and acorns until I had swollen up to twice my natural size. Otherwise I'd hardly be worth eating, as you see; I've been living on flatbread and dried meat-and not much of that-for months.”
”You might be more worth eating then, but I'd never get the chance. If you get off the island you'll keep on going into the woods and someone else will get to eat you.”
”No, I plan to come back and talk with the woman in the cottage.”
”You won't be back. She's crazy, you know. I always hide when she comes down by the bridge here. She scares me.”
”She's my mother.”
”Oh. Sorry.” Several of the troll's faces peered at him. ”I guess I see the resemblance at that,” it admitted. There was a long pause. ”Walnuts, eh?” The troll licked several of its lips. ”All right. Go on: don't be too long.” It jumped off the side of the bridge and disappeared.
Morlock crossed back over the bridge and went off into the woods. He built a potter's wheel, found some clay, and threw a vase. It was long and narrow in external form, about two feet long; he folded the outside through a higher dimension so that the inside was about the size of a small room. He had no kiln, but he took out his choir of flames and explained to them what he needed. They were not very bright, as flames go: the few survivors from the debacle in the winterwood had propagated to fill the nexus, and most of the flames were rather youthful. But Morlock explained to them what he needed and stayed there to keep them on task, and by the following morning the vase was baked and glazed to Morlock's exacting specifications. He stowed the nexus and the jar in his backpack and returned to the wooden bridge leading to the island in the lake.
When he stepped onto the bridge the troll climbed out of the water and drew itself up onto the walkway. The majority of its eyes looked doubtfully at Morlock and it said, ”You don't seem to be twice your previous size. What was that? Hyperbole? I dislike rhetorical tropes that verge on dishonesty.”
”Unfortunately, there are no walnuts or acorns in the woods. It's spring and they won't be ripe until autumn.”
”Now wait a moment. Just wait a moment.”
”I expect my mother will give me a good breakfast. Mothers are famous for that.”
”I wouldn't know,” the troll replied. ”We reproduce by fission.”
”I'd heard. You must be pretty close to splitting, to judge by the number of extrusions from your central body.”
”Yes, pretty close now, pretty close. If I can ever get anything to eat.”
”I'll be headed back this way after I speak with my mother, whether she gives me anything to eat or not.”
The troll's mouths were tight with skeptical sneers. Morlock guessed that if he were trying to leave the island instead of entering it there would have been more discussion. As it was the troll nodded him on with one of its smaller heads and it climbed with quiet dignity back under the bridge.
The door was closed. He knocked on it. Nimue half opened the door and peered through the gap, her watery gray eyes unlit by any recognition. ”Yes?” she asked suspiciously.
”I'm your son, Morlock Ambrosius. Yesterday I offered to rea.s.semble the segments of your self.”
”Is that supposed to be funny?”
He went through the whole matter with her again. Sometimes she remembered him; more often she did not; sometimes it seemed as if she did, but it turned out she was thinking of someone else. Not infrequently she railed at him, thinking he was Merlin.
He found it went easier if he didn't think of her as one person but as a group of people. He had to discuss the matter with all of them and bring them all to agreement before they could go on. Every now and then someone new would come in and he would have to start over. It was not the kind of work he had ever been good at, but there it was: the task he had to do, the task he had set himself.
Around noon they had reached a point in the conversation where Nimue said, ”But how is this going to work? There is a troll down by the bridge who says the most offensive things about me whenever I go down there-I've had to speak quite sharply to him about it. I'm sure he wouldn't hesitate to eat either one of us. And Merlin must have set other protections around the place besides.”
He showed her the jar and explained his plan.
She drew herself up and looked at him suspiciously. ”Are you sure you're not Merlin? He was always putting me in jars.”
He shrugged. ”I think this will work. If you have another idea-”
”You shouldn't shrug like that. It draws attention to your shoulders.”
He looked her in the eye and shrugged.
She snickered. ”All right. I get the message. And no I don't have any ideas. If I had any ideas I would have told them to that young fellow who came here looking for his horse; he was much politer than you are.”
Morlock took a stoppered green bottle out of his backpack and released the morpheus-bird, its wings feathered with every shade of dim green. It flew once around Nimue's head and then returned to its bottle. He restoppered the bottle as his mother's sh.e.l.l lumped to the ground.
He laid her out flat on the floor and rolled her up as tightly as he could, like a scroll of thick paper with irregular edges. Then he slid her into the narrow mouth of the jar he had made in the woods. There was a cap for the jar but he left it off, in case she needed to speak to him about anything when she awoke. He stowed the jar and the bottle in his pack and went back down to the bridge for the last time.