Split Infinity

Stile reached out and caught a foot. He hauled it in, then wrestled the body out of the pond. But the golem was defunct, whether from the fire or the water Stile could not tell. It no longer resembled him, other than in outline. Its clothing was gone, its painted skin scorched, its head a bald mass of charcoal.

“I did not mean it to end quite this way,” Stile said soberly. “I suppose thou wast only doing thy job, golem, what thou wert fashioned for, like a robot. I will bury thee.”

The gate guard appeared. He looked at the scene, startled. “Who is master, now?”

Startled in turn. Stile realized that he should be the master, having deposed the impostor. But he knew things weren’t settled yet. “Speak to the Lady,” he said.

The guard turned to her. “A wolf comes, seeking one of its kind.”

Kurrelgyre growled and stalked out to investigate.  “Speak naught of this outside,” the Lady Blue directed the guard. Then she turned to Stile. “Thou’rt no golem. Comest thou now to destroy what remains of the Blue Demesnes?”

“I come to restore it,” Stile said.

“And canst thou emulate my lord’s power as thou dost impersonate his likeness?” she asked coldly.

Stile glanced at Neysa. “I can not. Lady, at this time.  I have made an oath to do no magic—“

“How convenient,” she said. “Then thou needst not prove thyself, having removed one impostor, and thou proposest to assume his place, contributing no more to these Demesnes than he did. And I must cover for thee, even as I did for the brute golem.”

“Thou needst cover for nobody!” Stile cried in a flash of anger. “I came because the Oracle told me I was Blue! I shall do what Blue would have done!”

“Except his magic, that alone distinguished my lord from all others,” she said.

Stile had no answer. She obviously did not believe him, but he would not break his oath to Neysa, though he wanted above all else to prove himself to the Lady Blue. She was such a stunning figure of a woman—his alternate self had had tastes identical to his own.

Kurrelgyre returned, assuming man-form. “A member of my pack brings bitter news to me,” he said.  “Friend, I must depart.”

 “Thou wert always free to do so,” Stile said, turning to this distraction with a certain relief. “I thank thee for thy help. Without seeking to infringe upon thy prerogatives, if there is aught I can do in return—“

“My case is beyond help,” the werewolf said. “The pack leader has slain mine oath-friend, and my sire is dying of distemper. I must go slay the pack leader—and be in turn torn apart by the pack.”

Stile realized that werewolf politics were deadly serious matters. “Wait briefly, friend! I don’t understand.  What is an oath-friend, and why—?”

“I needs must pause to explain, since I shall not be able to do it hereafter,” Kurrelgyre said. “Friendship such as exists between the two of us is casual; we met at random, part at random, and owe nothing to each other. Ours is an association of convenience and amicability. But I made an oath of friendship with Drowltoth, and when I was expelled from the pack he took my bitch—“

“He stole thy female?” Stile cried.

“Nay. What is a bitch, compared to oath-friendship?  He took her as a service to me, that she be not shamed before the pack. Now, over a pointless bone, the leader has slain him, and I must avenge my friend. Since I am no longer of the pack, I may not do this legitimately; therefore must I do it by stealth, and pay the consequence, though my sire die of grief.”

Oath-friendship. Stile had not heard of this before, but the concept was appealing. A liaison so strong it pre-empted male-female relations. That required absolute loyalty, and vengeance for a wrong against that friend, as for a wrong against oneself. Golden rule.

Yet something else nagged him. Stile pursued it through the tangled skein of his recent experience, integrating things he had learned, and caught it.

“There is another way,” he said. “I did not grasp it before, because this frame evidently has a more violent manner of settling accounts than I am used to. Here, perhaps, it is proper to kill and be killed over minor points of honor—“

“Of course it is!” the werewolf agreed righteously.

 “Just so. My apology if I misinterpret thine imperatives; I do not wish to give offense. But as I perceive it, thou couldst rejoin thy pack. Thou hast only to kill thy sire—“

“Kill my sire!” Kurrelgyre exclaimed. “I told thee—“

“Who is dying anyway,” Stile continued inexorably.  “Which death would he prefer—a lingering, painful, ignominious demise by disease, or an honorable, quick finish in the manner of his kind, as befits his former status, by the teeth of one he knows loves him?”

The werewolf stared at Stile, comprehending.

“And thus thou’rt restored to thy pack, having done thy duty, and can honorably avenge thine oath-friend, without penalty,” Stile concluded. “And take back thy bitch, who otherwise would be shamed by the loss of both wolves she trusted.”