Travellers' Rest Read Free

treat me unkindly. I am not used to that.”
    “Learn,” Morlock suggested.
    “No. I’m done with learning.” The stranger drew a sword from under his voluminous cloak and pointed it at Morlock. “I learned how to cut people open when they are unkind to me. That’s all I need. Now people are kind to me or I cut them open. Which is it for you? What do you say?”
    What Morlock said was, “Tyrfing!”
    Wyrth dropped to the floor. Morlock’s sword, Tyrfing (its black-and-white blade glittering in the light from the open door to the street), flew over his head and into Morlock’s open hand.
    The stranger looked without dismay at the sword that had suddenly come to Morlock’s hand when called. “I see it. You are a sorcerer.”
    “I am Morlock Ambrosius,” the crooked man replied.
    The man and the woman screamed together and hid their faces. The girl seemed frightened, too, but she kept watching.
    “I have a name, too,” the stranger said slyly. “A name that makes people scream, a name they are afraid to say.”
    He tossed back his cloak, and Wyrth saw that his frame was not so very large after all. What made him seem bulky was the fact that he had six arms, each of them armed with a sword. “I am Iagiawôn,” the stranger said triumphantly. “Iagiawôn the Many-Handed!” He advanced, spinning the blades as if his wrists were on pivots.
    “I told you,” Wyrth shouted at Morlock, “ we should have gone to the next town !”
    “Get them out of here,” Morlock said and retreated a step or two, Tyrfing raised to guard against the rippling hedge of blades.
    “That means you!” Wyrth shouted at the family huddling behind the counter. But only the girl seemed to hear him, and she was caught tight in her parents’ double embrace.
    Wyrth muttered a brief but sincere curse and dashed across the entryway, sparing a moment to kick at the back of Iagiawôn’s left knee, spoiling his sixfold thrust at Morlock. Unfortunately it did no other harm; the joint had some sort of buglike carapace to protect it. Wyrth half expected one of the six freakishly mobile arms to swing around and stab at him with a sword, but that didn’t happen. When Wyrth realized it wasn’t happening, he knew that was important somehow, but he didn’t have time to think about it.
    Wyrth dragged Sunlar and his wife to their feet and pushed them across the floor into the dining hall. “Is there a back door in here?” he asked the wide-eyed girl, there obviously being no point in addressing a sensible question to the sobbing hysterical adults.
    “Yes—” the girl began.
    “What’s the point?” Sunlar wailed. “Morlock can find us wherever we go! Unless you think Iagiawôn can kill him?”
    Wyrth lived on terms of irritable cheerfulness with life, and very few things really made him genuinely angry. But this was one of them.
    “You snivelling swill-vendor!” he shouted up at Sunlar’s startled tear-stained face. “Morlock is risking his life out there for you and your family, even though he probably doesn’t remember your names. And you’re in here hoping the monster who came to take your daughter—your second daughter as I understand it—you’re hoping he fulfills his wish and cuts Morlock open. Well, don’t worry about it. However the fight works out, you won’t have to worry about Morlock coming after you; all those old stories are lies. Go on; get out of here; run as far and as fast as you can. But remember: every day of your life from now on is the gift of Morlock Ambrosius.”
    He turned away from the family and grabbed a heavy drinking mug molded (badly) from pewter. He ran back into the entryway and saw Morlock was continuing a circling retreat, dodging the occasional sixfold thrust.
    Wyrth threw the mug as hard as he could at Iagiawôn’s head, hoping it would bash out whatever the insectile thug used for brains. Wyrth was not hampered by any superstitions about fair fighting.
    Unfortunately, it did worse than no