He turned to the sweltering room. Either side of his shadow, moonlight dusted the stone. Heat again was against his face. Air from the window chilled his back. How had the room gotten so hot?

  In the corner lay his pack (from which he’d taken the fur), open, spilling the funeral gifts. His sword in its sheath lay on the floor. There was his helmet, his gauntlets, his grieves.

  On the rumpled fur was a black blotch where his sweat, neck to knee, had soaked it.

  Another drop trickled his calf.

  Taking one more breath of stifling air, he crossed the chamber, stopping to feel the fur. To lie on that again would be like crawling into wet rags. Besides, though he was a vital man, he was no longer a young one: he was of an age when to interrupt a night’s sleep was to end it.

  At the door, he lifted the locking plank and leaned it on the wall. The rock was hot—almost too hot to touch! As he pulled one and another doorplank free, again he wondered how the little tower room he’d picked to sleep in could, on a summer night, become such a furnace.

  As the third came loose, a cross breeze started. He shivered, naked, leaning the board against the wall; the heat warmed his knuckles. Taking another long breath, he stepped into the hall.

  Not cold, he tried to tell his body. Just a summer’s night in an abandoned ruin. He rubbed the heel of his hand down his temple: sweat came away oily on his palm. He ran his other hand over his head: his rough hair, thin on top, was usually braided in the club-like military manner at the side of his head. But it had come largely loose. His fingers, catching in it, pulled the rest free.

  Starting down the steps, he put his fingers against the rock. Yes, the wall even here was warm, despite the stairwell’s cool.

  He descended in darkness. Beneath his bare feet the steps were dusty and irregularly spaced. Under his hand the stones were gritty. Once he crossed a landing he vaguely remembered, before doubling around on more stairs. For the third, the fifth, the seventh time he wondered if he should return to the little room for a weapon—just a knife. Then he saw the flicker.

  Something crackled.

  He moved to the arch and looked around the wall.

  Across the hall, in the long fireplace, flames lapped the logs. On the floor, ten feet from the hearth, a young man lay, stomach down, head on his bent arm. The hair was yellow. The face was hidden in sleep and shadow.

  The big man frowned.

  Again he thought of returning for a knife—though this youngster, some barbarian who’d made his way into the castle much as he had, was as naked as he. The man looked around. Why, he wondered, build such a fire in high summer? Could the night outside have grown that chill? Along the balcony the arches were dark caves. Staring as far into the corners as the firelight reached, he could see no pack.

  But certainly these summer flames had started some convection in the castle’s flues, vents, and conduits that, with the rising heat, had turned the room above into an oven.

  No, he decided, he did not need a weapon with this naked barbarian—unless the boy slept with a dagger beneath his belly. But, while desert men sometimes did that, it was not the barbarians’ style. As if answering the man’s thoughts, the boy snorted and rocked to his side, trying to turn on his back. (No, there was nothing under his stomach but stone.) In his sleep he scrubbed at his sparse beard, then settled on his belly again, one leg drawn up.

  Among the fire’s crackles, the man heard the boy’s breath. If I had my blade, he thought, I’d only frighten him if he woke. Stepping out into the hall, he walked toward the barbarian, dropped to a squat to watch—

  The hooting began high in the dark and soared up under the ceiling, to warble out within its own echo.

  The man twisted to look, lost balance, and went down on one knee, catching himself on the rock floor with a fist. And the boy came awake, pushing himself up, blinking about, staring at the ceiling, at the man.

  Man and boy—for the barbarian, despite his scraggly beard, was no more than sixteen—looked at each other, then at the dark.

  The boy said: ‘What was that? Who are you? What are you doing here?’ and kept looking up and back; when his face came down, the fire lit one blond cheek, one blinking eye, leaving one side of his face near black.

  For the length of three of the man’s slow breaths (and seven of the boy’s quick ones), flames snapped.

  ‘I suppose,’ the man said, after a while, ‘it was one of the local gods, ghosts, or demons that haunt these old piles.’ He regained his squat. ‘My name is Gorgik.’ (At that the boy looked over sharply.) ‘What am I doing here?’ Gorgik shrugged in the flicker. ‘Much the same as you, I’d guess. I stopped to spend the night because it was more protected than the forest; these villages are not that friendly to strangers. There’s a funeral procession due by the town tomorrow. I must ride out and join them, to go with them on to Kolhari. Since you asked, I’ve been a state minister ten years, now at the Court of Eagles, now abroad in the land. You look like you’ve heard my name…? Many have, especially among the barbarians: because many barbarians have been slaves. And I lead the council on the Child Empress Ynelgo (whose reign is just and generous) to end slavery in Nevèrÿon.’ Gorgik chuckled. ‘Some even consider me a hero for it. In parts of the land, I am known as Gorgik the Liberator.’

  ‘Are you?’ The boy frowned even harder.

  The big man shrugged. ‘It’s a clumsy title—not one an evening’s companion should use. I thought I’d come in where I could enjoy your fire a bit more than I could back up there.’ He reached out, took the boy’s chin in his rough hand, and turned the face full to the light.

  Both the boy’s eyes blinked now, close set, brown, and long-lashed. (On the man’s face, the fire lit a scar that wormed down the brown cheek into the rough beard, salted here and there.) Gorgik let the boy’s jaw go. His hand dropped back to his knee. ‘Now, you tell me who you are.’

  ‘Why do you look at me like that?’

  The man shrugged again. ‘I was having dreams, I think. That’s what woke me. I wanted to see… But I’ve told you enough about me. Who are you? What’s your name?’

  ‘I’m Udrog,’ the boy said. ‘Udrog, the barbarian. Why did you build a fire here?’ He sat up now. ‘The summer night’s warm. Did it turn cold outside?’

  ‘I didn’t build it’ Gorgik said. ‘You built it, Udrog—before you went to sleep. Didn’t you?’

  ‘No…’ Again the boy looked around the hall, then back at the flames. ‘Didn’t you light this fire, while I slept…’

  Gorgik shook his head. ‘When I came in and settled down to watch you, it was already burning.’ He narrowed green eyes.

  ‘I have no flint for making fire,’ Udrog said. ‘Besides, it’s summer.’ The boy drew his legs under him. ‘What kind of castle is this? It has strange sounds, strange fires…’

  ‘There’re many strange things in the world.’ Gorgik shrugged. ‘You learn to live with them.’

  The boy looked at the dark-skinned man. ‘You’re not scared?’

  ‘Nothing has hurt us yet. If someone wanted to harm us, it would have been easier when we both slept alone than now, when we’re both awake together.’

  There was a long, long silence. Some might have called it embarrassed. During it, the man watched the boy; and the boy began to watch the way in which the man watched him. (The man saw him see.) At last, after having looked around the hall, grinned at a few things, growled at a few others, dug in his ear with his little finger, scratched at his belly with his thumb, stood up, sat down, stood up, and sat down again, Udrog let his eyes return to the man’s… and stay. ‘You just came to crouch here,’ he asked, ‘and look at me…? You’re strong.’ He let his head fall to the side. ‘Do you like to watch me… when I sleep, maybe?’

  Gorgik pursed his lips a moment. ‘Yes.’

  The boy blinked. Then, with the smallest smile, he said: ‘You like to do anything besides watch, now I’m awake?’

  After a moment, Gorgik asked: ‘Such as?’

  ‘You know,’ the boy said. ‘Things together, you and me. Like we could have some fun with each other.’

  ‘Sometimes.’ Gorgik chuckled. ‘What things do you like?’

  ‘Anything. Anything you want. To have a good time, together. The two of us. You’re a big man. You’re not afraid. If we were together, you’d protect me from any monsters. Or ghosts. Or gods. I don’t mind old men, if they’re still strong and masterful. Perhaps, afterwards, you might give me a coin?’

  Gorgik snorted. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘And you’re not that old. I like to do it with strong men, big men. You ever fuck real rough?’

  ‘I have…’ Gorgik paused. Then he said: ‘Sometimes I do it so rough most men and women wouldn’t think of it as fucking.’ He smiled; and the smile became a laugh. ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘Sure!’ The barbarian grinned broadly.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘In these old castles—’ Udrog leaned forward—‘you look around; sometimes, in the cellars, you find old, broken collars that they used to chain the slaves in. I always look for them when I come to these places. Sometimes I put them on, you know? The broken ones, that you can take off again. But I didn’t find any here.’

  ‘Do you want to be my slave?’ Gorgik asked. ‘Would you like me to be your master?’

  ‘Yes!’ Udrog grinned hugely in the firelight. ‘That’s what I like to do!’

  Once more Gorgik hesitated. Then, in a motion, he stood. ‘Wait here.’ He turned and started for the arch. ‘I’ll be back.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Just wait.’

  ‘Don’t go away too long!’ Udrog called. ‘It’s scary here!’

  But Gorgik was out into the corridor and, a moment later, climbing the black stair. Again in the dark, he wondered at this encounter. He’d had them before. But this barbaric directness was both uncommon and intriguing. Besides, such meetings were rare with someone this young; when they happened, they both surprised and pleased.

  Now and again his hand touched the wall—yes, and here, where he was almost certainly just behind the fireplace, the stones were hot. It must have been the oddly unauthored fire, working through the castle’s conduits (set up to warm the room in winter…?) that, now it was summer, had caused the overheating.

  When he reached the door, the warmth came out to brush his belly, his chin, his knees.

  Moonlight still lay on the floor. But the moon itself had moved so that it took him a minute to be sure nothing had been touched. Though the shadows had all shifted, helmet, grieves, sword, and sack were where he’d left them.

  He stepped into the hot chamber, went to squat before his pack, reached in, pulled back this, moved aside that. Yes, his own flint was still wedged toward the bag’s bottom, wrapped in oily wadding. Gorgik drew out the hinged metal semicircles—the slave collar Udrog had described. Holding it in one hand, he stood, turned, and, with his free hand, pulled the fur throw from the bed—yes, the intense heat had almost dried it.

  The rug over his shoulder, he started for the door, then glanced at his sword.

  No. What he had was enough. But, when he was outside (he’d begun to sweat; already the corridor that, before, had been warm seemed chill), he put the fur and the slave collar down to pull one plank, then the other, into the doorframe—not evenly and tightly: he lay one diagonally across the entrance and another loosely the other way. A third he barely balanced against them so that, if any but the most careful person moved it, all would topple loudly.

  He picked up the fur and the collar and went back down the steps.

  ‘You were gone so long.’ Udrog sat on the hearth’s edge at the side where the flames were lowest, holding one foot and rubbing the other. ‘I was frightened. Where did you—?’

  ‘There.’ Gorgik tossed the rug down. ‘We can lie on that. You are my slave now. Come here.’

  The boy gazed at the iron Gorgik held out. The boy’s lips parted slightly; his eyelids closed—slightly. He came forward, on his knees, raised his chin, and rested one hand on Gorgik’s naked thigh. ‘Yes, master…!’

  Gorgik closed the collar around his neck.

  ‘Tie me up if you want,’ Udrog said. ‘I like that, too. Maybe if you go looking again, you can find some rope. Sometimes they even have chains in these places—’

  ‘You’re my slave,’ Gorgik said. ‘You do what I say now. At least for a while.’ He sat down on the rug and put his arm around the boy’s shoulder, pulling him, first gently, then roughly over. ‘What I want you to do is be quiet.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Tell you a story.’

  Udrog frowned. ‘I think it would be good if you tied me up. Then you could beat me. Hard. I don’t mind if it’s hard… I’ll let you know if it hurts too much. Though sometimes I even pretend it’s too hard when it’s not. So you don’t even have to stop then…’ When Gorgik was silent, the boy suddenly pushed away over the rug. He put his hand up to feel the iron. ‘This is really bad, isn’t it? This stuff we do.’ He sucked his teeth, shook his head, looked around. ‘I don’t know why I do it. But you like it too, don’t you? I just wish it wasn’t so scary, here. But maybe that will make it better? This fur, it smells like you sweated in it a lot.’ He lowered his face to plow his chin through, then sat up again. ‘I like that. You didn’t build the fire—?’

  ‘Be quiet, slave!’ Gorgik’s voice was loud enough to make the boy start. ‘Come here. And listen! I want to tell you something. So lie against me here and be still.’

  3

  WE PAUSE BEFORE THIS tale within a tale within a tale—to tell another tale.

  We’ll talk awhile of Udrog.

  The young barbarian was confused, you see, about certain things—although he was clear enough about certain others.

  Economic upheavals in Nevèrÿon, of which the abolition of slavery by proclamation of the Child Empress Ynelgo half a dozen years before was only the most recent, had commenced much movement in the land.

  Once fear of slavers was gone from the highways and backroads of Nevèrÿon, more and more folk from the southern forests and the northern mountains and the western deserts had begun to make their way to the cities. And those in the cities with money, imagination, and industry had begun to take their primitive industrial knowledge out into the country to see what profit and speculation were to be had. Motion from margin to center, from center to margin was constant—till, in a handful of years, it had altered Nevèrÿon’s whole notion of margin and center. New margins had been created, which, today, like cracks between the more stable parts of the social engine, worked from the back alleys of the great port cities, such as Vinelet and Kolhari, to the waterfront refuse pits of fishing villages on the coast and quarrying towns off the river, such as Enoch and Ka’hesh. Now and again a margin passed right through some ancient castle abandoned to its demons, ghosts, and gods by an aristocracy who had moved on to be absorbed by the more lively, more energetic, and finally more profitable middle classes.

  These margins were often left to those like Udrog.

  Udrog’s personal history was common enough for such a boy. When he was six, his father had died in a hunting accident. Always sickly, his mother had passed away a year later from a fever. For most of the next year he was a ward of his small barbarian tribe—a possible but not a pleasant life for a child.

  The man who’d provided most of Udrog’s (very irregular) material care had beat the boy and cuffed him and had generally abused him far too much and been far too sparing with the affections which are all that, at last, can heal such abuse. The man had been ailing and, himself, finally died. The woman who next took Udrog into her family was kind and caring enough, even if she’d had too many brats from various relatives already foisted off on her. There were two older children who liked to take Udrog off into the woods, where the three of them would play games in which they tied each other up and pretended to beat each other and cuffed each other, games that now and again had an overtly sexual side—perhaps the older children’s early lives had been similar to Udrog’s. But reducing to play what once had been true torture gave them—the two girls and the younger boy—a power over the mists of pain that was all memory had left (at least to Udrog) of childhood. After the first time, he never objected—indeed, now and again he nagged the girls to go off with him and do it again. Perhaps they could even bring some of the older boys…? By the time he was ten, the tribe was only a third the size it had been four years before—because a village fifty stades to the east had grown, with northern monies, into a sizable town. The woman was living with another man now, kind enough in his way, but who had brought with him children of his own.

  Too many children altogether, certainly.

  Some of them must go out to work.

  Some must go off to one town.

  Some must go off to another.

  There was still another, where a friend of a friend had said there was at least a promise of a job.

  Could the boy travel the way alone? Well, whether he could or not, there was nothing else for it.

  By the time he was twelve, spending more time between towns than in them, Udrog had entered those margins along which he was to travel for, really, the rest of his life.

  In many ways they provided quite an adventure; they spanned far more of Nevèrÿon than most of his people ever saw.

  They took him from country to city. They took him from desert to forest. They took him from great breweries to share-cropping combines to tanning troughs to construction sites—seldom as a worker, at least for more than a day or so, but as someone who lived off what spilled into the marginal track—now in the fields and woods, now in the cities and villages.