Surrender to the Will of the Night (73 page)

The cloaked figure carried a small barrel. Contents and all, that weighed thirty-five pounds. A foot of smoldering slow match protruded from one end. The figure set it down on its side, used a foot to roll it through the deadly doorway. The barrel wobbled and shifted directions but came to rest against the leg of an ornate chair.

The cloaked figure vanished.

***

The faintest forerunner of dawn’s light had begun to taint the overcast. An explosion ripped a hole through the south wall of the third floor of the Doneto town house. Fragments of gray stone flew a hundred yards. In the stillness following the explosion the structure creaked and groaned. Then the rest of the north face yielded to the seduction of gravity.

Fires burned inside.

The neighborhood panicked. Volunteers poured out. Fire was the bane of all old cities.

This fire failed in its struggle to live and grow.

***

Heris and the Ninth Unknown twisted into existence quayside in the Realm of the Gods, she seconds after he, though he had left the Delari town house twenty minutes ahead. He said, “I think I know why you look haggard this morning, girl.”

“I’m not used to a plush bed anymore.”

“Oh. Somebody got into the Patriarchal magazine at Krois last night. A keg of firepowder went missing. One of only six that Krois possessed.”

“Intriguing. Why would somebody do that?”

“Got me. But later an explosion took the whole north wall off Bronte Doneto’s town house.”

“Amazing. And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fellow. Here’s the welcome crew.”

Korban Iron Eyes and Asgrimmur Grimmsson were headed their way.

A dozen more dwarves were visible, all hard at work.

Cloven Februaren said, “Iron Eyes. I thought we were going to get your people out of here before we opened the way.”

“We will. Meantime, we keep on working to make sure everything goes right. Heris, everything you wanted is ready to go.”

“Even the spear?”

“Twelve spears. Two formulations. Held together by the same magic that binds the rainbow bridge.”

“Korban, I could kiss you.”

“Long as my woman doesn’t see.”

“That’s beautiful, Korban. Absolutely wonderful. You’re a genius. Now all I need is a way to get everything over there.”

Jarneyn actually winked. “No problem. It’s Andoray. Heart of the realm ruled by the Old Ones. Aelen Kofer can turn up anywhere in Andoray. And we have. The engines are in place. The spears are ready to go.”

Februaren asked, “What’s going on, Heris?”

“I had a lot of time on my hands while we were waiting for my falcons. I cooked up a way to sap the Windwalker’s strength.”

Iron Eyes chuckled. He approved. Definitely.

Februaren frowned. The girl was up to no good. Again.

Iron Eyes was more amused.

The ascendant seemed equally entertained.

Grimmsson seemed to have taken a vow of silence. He just stood there looking goofy.

Heris asked, “Where’s the Bastard?” Getting no answer, she demanded, “Did anyone bother to let him know we’re ready?”

“He’s hard to reach,” Iron Eyes said. “If you’re a short, wide, hairy person who has difficulty with the language. And Asgrimmur is likely to be attacked on sight.”

“Asgrimmur, if he put his mind to it, could walk into the throne room of the Grail Empire as anybody he wants to be. I smell a steaming hot pile of laziness. Double Great and I shouldn’t be the only ones who do anything.”

Iron Eyes just looked back blandly.

“You got a golden tongue on you, girl,” Februaren said. “Sorry, Iron Eyes. When she’s cranky she has this wicked knack for saying exactly the right thing.”

“I’ve gotten used to it.”

“The Bastard hasn’t been informed?”

“We don’t know. We’ve tried. My sense is, he’s ignoring us.”

“We’ll see about that.” Februaren faced the water. “Take me outside. I’ll snag the asshole by his twisty little piggy tail and drag him back.”

Heris said, “I never cease to be amazed by your confidence, Double Great.”

“You just make sure everything stays set.”

***

Cloven Februaren was gone. Heris collected Iron Eyes and Grimmsson and plied them with the best dark ale in the Aelen Kofer tavern. “So what do you think? Should we just hang around drinking? Or should we pass the time trying out my method?”

“I’m up for that,” the ascendant said.

Iron Eyes considered Asgrimmur with a veiled expression, then Heris. “My young bucks will be eager. But they’ll need to be called in and briefed. Then they’ll have to go back to our world to make the transit.”

“Or we can just brief them on the way.”

“No. We’ll keep our world to ourselves. You do your sideways trick.”

“More time,” Heris grumbled.

“Everything takes time,” Jarneyn countered. “That’s the curse of being mortal.” He headed for the barge. It still concealed the portal to the Aelen Kofer world.

“So what do we do now?” If she had known there would be more waiting around she would have stayed in Brothe. She could cause a lot more mischief there. And could sleep in a comfortable bed when she was not.

“We can check what they did in the Great Sky Fortress.”

***

Heris had lost all fear of the rainbow bridge. She walked across like it was solid granite.

For no real reason she detoured to the dead orchard. She had not visited since that one time, before. She stepped through the fallen wall. “Asgrimmur.”

“What?”

“Look at this. Is this what I think?”

A shoot stood six inches tall where she had envisioned a blond goddess planting a golden apple. The shoot was not healthy. It was a pallid greenish yellow.

The ascendant seemed almost breathless. “I think so. But it hasn’t absorbed much magic. It may not survive.”

Heris stared. She thought the shoot was aware of her.

The gods would need their golden apples after their release.

“Asgrimmur, we never considered the apples in our calculations and preparations.”

The ascendant let that simmer briefly, said, “We didn’t, did we?”

“How strong could they be when we release them? How long can they last without the fruit? Because that tree won’t produce apples in a human lifetime.”

“More likely, never.” He turned away, shoulders sagging. He stepped out of the garden, ambled toward the entrance to the keep.

What was his problem?

The ghost of the Walker, disappointed. Beginning to realize that patience was not enough. There would be no restoration. No escape from flesh where he was a passenger without control.

Could he be exorcised? She rather liked today’s Asgrimmur Grimmsson.

Heris followed the brooding ascendant to the hall where the return would happen. It was a jungle of color as jarring as biting into an unsuspected hot pepper. Nowhere else in the Great Sky Fortress was there any color.

The Aelen Kofer had created lamps burning oils charged with sorcery to give the color Heris wanted to paint and chalk her cuing lines and signs so participants would know where to stand and how to move. The colors were on floor, ceiling, and walls. Cords ran hither and yon to keep people from moving in wrong or dangerous directions. Six falcons all directed their snouts at an area of interior wall on which had been painted a square in a harsh red. Large black dots marred the red. Two eighteen-inch-wide trestle tables sat endwise to the wall and lengthwise toward the two heaviest falcons, which had their butts to the light from outside. On the tables were hammers, star chisels, copper tubes with silver linings, blow tubes charged with silver dust, oils and unguents, garlic paste, and anything else Heris, Jarneyn, or the ascendant thought had any chance whatsoever of being useful.

Heris discreetly checked to make sure items suggested by the ascendant lay at the ends of the table farthest from the red paint.

Trust leavened by caution. Always.

The ascendant did not appear to mind. Might not, for that matter, have noticed.

There was more. Much more. The Aelen Kofer had invested a middle-world fortune in silver. There was silver everywhere, in everything, in patterns meant to constrain and direct the Old Ones if they evaded immediate control. Silver would channel them into the mouths of the falcons. Silver would subject them to harsh debilitation before they could escape to their hapless world. Any that did win free would have been drained down to the weight of boogies and sprites. There would be nowhere to go but their dead realm after that.

Before the release started Iron Eyes would seal all the exits from outside. Only those inside the Realm of the Gods would suffer.

A dozen heavy glass bottles in the general shape of flat bottom teardrops sat near the painted wall. Their tops bent at right angles and narrowed to a tube just large enough to fit one of the silver-lined copper tubes. The bottles ranged in size from a gallon to more than a hogshead. They were masterworks of Aelen Kofer glassblowing. The thick glass held hints of sparkle, smoke, and gray and purple. Silver dust had gone into the melt.

Heris hoped to move the Old Ones from one captivity to another, where contracts could be forged before the Old Ones were decanted.

The ascendant asked, “Is there anything more you can ask?” Exasperated because she was such a detail-oriented woman.

His main personalities were all smash and grab and deal with the consequences later sorts.

“I’m sure there must be. I’m counting on the Old Ones to be confused and disoriented long enough for us mortals to get control.” She watched to see how that played.

Too much of this depended on the ascendant.

He had to have control of the Instrumentalities inside him. Then the Bastard had to do whatever a blood descendant had to do.

Heris never did understand that part. But all the old farts agreed: The thing could not be managed without the presence of the divine blood. They were the ones intimate with the Night. They knew the supernatural rules.

She hoped.

***

Iron Eyes was waiting on the quay. Impatiently. “Good to see you two. …” He did not explain what irritated him. “The youngsters are over there already. Including my only son. The Windwalker is working himself up. He knows the appearance of Aelen Kofer means an attack is coming. It always has. He’ll think the Old Ones are free and will turn up after the Aelen Kofer prepare the way. But all he’ll get is you. Hurry. I don’t want him smashing up the future of my tribe.”

Heris scowled. If Jarneyn hadn’t been determined to save the dwarf world from outsider pollution she and the ascendant would be there now. “So let’s hoist all sail and a-reeving go.”

That won no smiles.

They kept saying she had to work on her sense of humor.

Iron Eyes wasted no time moving Heris and Asgrimmur outside the Realm of the Gods.

The ascendant was shaking when Heris took hold for the translation. So. He could be afraid despite all his strength and power.

Out the other side, arriving at the same point as before, with Asgrimmur totally shaken. He needed three minutes to regain control.

“Are the transitions really that rough?” Heris asked. They were like blinking her eyes for her, anymore.

“Yes. And worse each time. That was terrible. I felt trapped. The more time went on the more sure I was that I’d never get out again.”

“We need to explore that, then. Come on. Tell me while we’re getting set to shoot.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me what you experienced, carefully and clearly. I want to know why it’s different from what I experience. And will you look at that?”

There had been a dramatic change in the Windwalker. The great jellyfish blob was gone. The god had traded the protection of two-thirds of its mass for a shape that concentrated strength and required less energy to maintain.

The Windwalker now resembled a gigantic lard toad tadpole about to shed its last remnant of a tail.

Asgrimmur said, “It isn’t that hard to explain. When you translate you’re a human cutting a chord across the Night. When you carry me you take a part of me back home. The Banished and the Walker were born of the Night. Svavar was imprisoned there for centuries. Svavar is repelled. The Walker and Banished are, too, but they’re also drawn. And we can see the entities that dwell there. The hideous souls.”

“Souls? It’s like Hell? Or Purgatory? Or Limbo?”

“Limbo, maybe. For the souls of gods. Instrumentalities have two souls. They bring one into our world with them. They leave the other one in the Night. It anchors them. I see those when we pass through.”

“Well, that sounds good.” Distracted. “It’s got eyes this time. It’s looking at us … Down!” She pulled the ascendant off his feet.

The toad-thing’s tongue struck where they had been an instant earlier. Heris wasted several seconds wondering how she had anticipated Kharoulke. Maybe repeated exposures during her transitions had left her sensitive. “Why am I wasting time brooding when that thing is about to …? You Aelen Kofer! Why aren’t you shooting?”

Asgrimmur tried to say something.

“Yeah. Never mind for now. Come on.” She grabbed his hand and yanked, proud that she had remembered which one was real. She headed for the nearest dwarfish ballista.

That, being of Aelen Kofer manufacture, was an amazing engine. Which had been assembled where it could not be brought to bear on the Windwalker. None of the crew admitted sharing a language with Heris.

Asgrimmur interrupted her rant, “They couldn’t put it together in a clear line of sight because the Instrumentality would get them with its tongue.”

Heris’s high excitement wilted. “All this for nothing? Did I outsmart myself again?”

“Again?”

“For the first time. What do I do now?”

“You go to the other machine, which is out of the toad’s range, and get it started. Once the Instrumentality is fixed on it these dwarves will move their engine up.”

“You follow dwarf gabble good enough to get all that?”

“I filled in based on context. But parts of me did speak the language when they were independent.”