The Wolf Age by James Enge Page A

than forty years. Anyway, he bribed the jury-used the proceeds of the robbery to fund the bribes. You have to admit that shows vifna."
    "Do I?" Morlock didn't know what vifna was, but he didn't think he liked it. "Wasn't this all illegal? I don't understand your system."
    "It was illegal, and everyone knew about it, and if things made sense maybe it wouldn't have worked. But Rywudhaariu was probably better off after my trial than before it. Somehow, if it's your job to make or enforce the laws and you break them with impunity, you can get a certain kind of bite from that. I don't understand it myself well enough to explain it, but that's how it seems to work. Maybe it's different in never-wolf cities."
    "I don't know," Morlock said slowly, thinking of the late and unlamented Protector Urdhven and the men who had followed him. "Maybe not that different."
    "Rywudhaariu's guards dragged me to the Sardhluun's plantation," Rokhlenu went on. "I was hoping they would have me working the fields, herding cattle or something. Escape would be easy. That's why they didn't do that, I guess. I started out on the ground floor and then worked my way up here." When he saw that Morlock didn't understand him, he explained, "The top floor is where they keep the real irredeemables. Like you and Khretnurrliu."
    Morlock bowed his head to accept the compliment.
    "I was hoping my father and brothers could bribe the Sardhluun to let me go, or at least give me a chance at escape," Rokhlenu said reflectively, "but I suppose Rywudhaariu is giving them their own trouble now."
    "`It's a fool who kills the father and lets the son live,"' Morlock said, quoting the proverb.
    "`Bare is the back with no brother,"' said Rokhlenu, quoting another.
    "Your back is bare," Morlock pointed out.
    "The god it is," Rokhlenu said, yawning. "I'm going to try to sleep now, Morlock. I don't know how you can stand this."
    Sleeping on a cold stone floor in human form, Morlock guessed he meant. But the truth was that Morlock didn't have to stand it, for he slept very little, and that little didn't do him much good. His body rested, but never his mind.
    Just now, for instance, he saw a fifth werewolf outside the cell. There were two guards in the day shape and two in the night shape, as always. One of the humans seemed to be in charge: he wore a neckband and chest-tort that bristled with accumulated teeth. Morlock thought this was Wurnafenglu. Morlock was fairly sure it was the same werewolf, and he was sure that he hated him. The others were just guards; Morlock might have seen them before, but he didn't recognize them.
    It was the fifth werewolf that really had Morlock's attention, although he never looked directly at him. He could not: every time Morlock tried, the werewolf seemed to sidle over to the edge of Morlock's vision. But Morlock knew him: it was Khretnurrliu, the werewolf he had decapitated. The body was in the day shape, carrying its severed head before it like a lamp. It did not speak, nor make any noise. The guards passed a remark to each other occasionally, but never to Khretnurrliu. But Morlock saw him. He could not stop seeing him.
    A pale shadow appeared at the bars: Hrutnefdhu, in the night shape. He coughed shyly, wondering if Morlock wished to talk.
    Morlock moved forward to sit by the cell door. The archers raised their arrows reflexively to threaten him, but he ignored them and presently they relaxed.
    "I'd rather sleep than talk," Morlock admitted, "but I can't sleep."
    Hrutnefdhu expressed sympathy.
    Morlock opened his hands: there was nothing to be done. "Can you change into wolf form without moonlight?" he wondered. "Can those?" he asked, gesturing at the guards.
    Hrutnefdhu sang that he had assumed the hairy cloak of wolfhood last night, with Trumpeter's last light, and resisted the man-shaping rays of the sun all day. He added in a whisper that the wolf-formed guards were unfortunates unblessed by the gift of a second skin.
    Morlock was interested.