Surrender to the will of the night

39. Kharoulke: In Pain

Misfortune tightened its grip on the Windwalker. Slowly, inevitably, the Instrumentality became more anchored to the present, though still with enough grasp of potential futures to see that few could turn out favorable.

His sense of this world, as a whole, and of the broad vistas of the Night had grown intensely feeble. His brethren, his hated brethren, were all failing in their returns, too. It would not require the concentrated bile of those who had imprisoned them to abort their rebirth. Human indifference and the failure of the wells of life would be sufficient.

The seeds had sprouted after lying dormant for ages. But their revenant shoots had emerged into ferocious drought.

For the first time in an existence that stretched back to a time before memory, the Instrumentality discovered emotions not intimately entwined with lust, hunger, rage, and hatred. Once he wasted his secret reserve creating a Krepnight, the Elect, that some feeble imitation of an Instrumentality crushed like a roach, he began to know despair. And fear.

For the first time in millennia, if not epochs or even aeons, Kharoulke the Windwalker conceived the possibility of an utter, permanent, inalterable end to the cosmic consciousness known as, and known to itself as, Kharoulke the Windwalker.

If only summer would end. 40. Alten Weinberg: Princess Apparent Circumstance had thrust the mantle of empire onto Helspeth again. Katrin, now quietly being called “the Mad Empress,” was far away with her private army, prosecuting her private war.

News of Jaime’s death met Helspeth on the road from Glimpsz to Alten Weinberg. She knew Katrin would not respond rationally.

That was the universal expectation.

Helspeth came home and immediately suffered the attentions of lords and knights who wanted permission to rush into Firaldia. Katrin’s pro-Brothen cronies had turned invisible. Anti-Patriarchals were everywhere, busy getting ready to do what they had wanted since Johannes was Emperor.

That pressure eased once official word came saying Katrin did intend to turn everyone loose on Serenity for having deprived her of a husband. Told to get rolling, the Imperial war machine sparked up and ran itself.

Everyone told Helspeth she was doing a marvelous job, standing in for Katrin.

She signed a decree, now and then.

She worried about the Commander of the Righteous. She worried about obsessing about the Commander of the Righteous. And she worried because the Commander of the Righteous had not sent a letter since last she had seen him.

She wondered how long it would be before Katrin chose one of the greedy suitors who were sure to start swarming, like maggots in the carcass of a dead dog, now that she was a widow. She prayed Katrin would remarry quickly.

Those were halcyon days, worries aside. The usual cruel politics had gone into abeyance. Energies were oriented toward delivering the licking Serenity and his cronies deserved. Men from the breadth and depth of the Empire headed south eagerly, in no special order, intent on joining the Grand Duke for the capture of Brothe. A few took the eastern routes to join Lord Admiral fon Tyre’s campaign on the Aco floodplain, down the east coast of Firaldia, and on the islands of the Vieran Sea.

Those who passed through Alten Weinberg all paused to pay respects to the Princess Apparent.

Helspeth asked Lady Hilda Daedle, “Have you noticed how nice these men are lately? It’s like, give them a foreign war and they turn into decent human beings.”

“It’s not the war, it’s your sister.”

“Excuse me?”

“You must have heard the rumors. About her behavior? About her health? About her mental state?”

What Helspeth had heard had been edited. No one wanted to make a bad impression. “No. Tell me.”

“She… She’s not behaving responsibly, running up front with the Righteous. Everyone is afraid she’ll do something stupid. Or madness will…”

“Hilda, this isn’t like you.”

“It’s delicate. It’s frightening. But the truth is, everybody thinks you’ll be Empress before long. Unless Katrin gets a grip on herself.”

“I don’t think I want to be Empress.”

“You’d defer to your Aunt Anies?”

Long silence. Brief, strained chuckle. Anies Ege was almost a stereotypical elderly, timid maiden lady. A recluse even here inside Winterhall. Anies should have been delivered into a cloistered nunnery thirty years ago. But her brother Johannes doted on her and would not compel her to do anything: marriage or religious vows.

“I think not. The wolves would tear her apart. The Empire would follow.”

“So. You see. No choice. Ah. Here’s something.”

One of the daughters of the ladies of the court advanced diffidently. “Your Highness. Captain Drear asked me to tell you that an important visitor would like to see you. He recommends an audience at your earliest convenience.”

“Did he say who this important visitor is?”

“Yes, and it please Your Highness. Ferris Renfrow, Your Highness.”

Long pause. Ferris Renfrow! The prodigal. “Very well. Tell the Captain yes, immediately, in the quiet room. Go! Hustle! Hilda. I want wine, coffee, refreshments. And incense. If Renfrow conforms to custom he’ll have come directly from somewhere unpleasant and will have the aroma to prove it.”

Renfrow did not conform to habit. He had bathed. He wore clothing that was not only clean but new.

“Where have you been?” Helspeth demanded, almost breathless. “Times are desperate. We need you.” Hustling him into the quiet room.

“Sadly, Princess, I’m only one man. I have to choose which desperate situations to attend. I’m here to report. In story form. It’s an epic. It will take a while. You aren’t to interrupt with questions, nor to ask questions when I’m finished. I’ll tell you what you need to know and that’s all I’ll tell you.” He faced Lady Hilda. “You. Shut the door tight. Then discover yourself temporarily deaf.”

He made a gentle sign. Hilda Daedle stood there with her mouth open, rubbing her ears. Renfrow took a pewter box from an inside pocket. Opened, it shed a half-dozen sleepy things resembling translucent night crawlers armed with dragonfly wings. They zipped around the quiet room, sniffing the walls. They landed and insinuated their bodies into cracks where they exuded something dark brown that smelled of pungent cheese.

Ferris Renfrow said, “I am amazed. Somebody has to be sabotaging this room. You’d better start tracking who comes and goes.”

There were so many little breaches four Night creatures used themselves up making seals. The other two did not have strength enough to flutter back to their box. Renfrow collected them and put them away.

He told his story. He did not let the Princess interrupt. He did not accept a single question when he was done. “I told you what you need to know, not what you want to know. We’re headed into a crucial time. Not because of what’s happening in Firaldia, the End of Connec, Arnhand, or anywhere else, but because of what’s happening in the Night.” Most of his story had concerned his part in a scheme to release trapped gods that the Church insisted never existed.

“But…”

“Rule well, dear heart. Don’t forget the mistakes your sister made. Avoid them. Consider avoiding your passions as well.”

“Sir!”

“Your infatuation has been obvious for years. Control it. The man isn’t who you think he is. He isn’t who I always thought he was, either. He may not even be who he thinks he is. I’ll be going shortly. They need me in Firaldia. Serenity has some clever and deadly people working for him. They could give the Grand Duke some bad days. I’ll be back, though. Probably within the week.”

“I will wait with bated breath.”

Renfrow was startled. “Sarcasm? Hmph! Just try to make time for me when I get here.”

“Always. There’s a chance you might let me ask a question.”

Renfrow showed an uncertain smile, took a sip of coffee, then made a gesture at Hilda of Averange.

Lady Hilda burst out, “I can hear again!” She gave Ferris Renfrow a dark look but reserved what she was inclined to say.

Renfrow shoved the door open, glared at people who had been trying to eavesdrop. “Here’s some names worth collecting, Your Highness.”

Soon afterward Renfrow was nowhere to be found in Alten Weinberg, though a dozen people eager to see him searched diligently.

Eight days passed before Ferris Renfrow reappeared. Helspeth took him into the quiet room immediately, though he seemed less secretive this time. Other than for a desire to conceal the fact that he had toured the length of Firaldia and had taken part in several skirmishes where his presence had made the difference. The Captain-General of Patriarchal forces was a clever rogue and had, twice, lured the Grand Duke into situations where Imperial forces might have been decimated. But for the intercession of the heroic Ferris Renfrow.

“Serenity’s half of the Collegium is very involved,” he said.

“That hasn’t happened much in recent times.”

“Not in more than a century. But people are becoming almost as polarized as they were before the schism that caused the Viscesment Patriarchy. Your sister turning on Serenity released a lot of pent-up passion.”

Helspeth sipped tea. She had not had coffee prepared. She waited, hoping Renfrow would understand his decline in favor.

“I visited the army straggling up from the south. It’s more talk than power. Sixteen hundred men, knights, sergeants, squires, and foot all counted. With a tail of several thousand hangers-on. The fighters are experienced. Joined with the Commander of the Righteous they’ll create a formidable threat south of Brothe. They’ll isolate the city from that direction. The Grand Duke will close off the north. And Admiral fon Tyre, probably late but not never, will eventually cross the Monte Sismonda and close down the east. It’s too bad the mercantile republics won’t get involved. They could blockade the Teragi and cut the Mother City off from the sea, too.”

“Uh…”

“I did see the Commander of the Righteous. Though not deliberately. I meant to visit your sister. Which I did. But Hecht and some of his people spotted me.”

“And?”

“He appears to be doing well. Your sister, on the other hand, is not. Her attendants and lifeguards are doing everything they can, including keeping her a virtual prisoner so she can’t harm herself or the Empire. But they’re just responding to symptoms. They aren’t treating the disease.”

“Katrin has had attitude problems since we were little. They never had much to do with what was going on outside her. She was just moody.”

“Her problem isn’t something that’s wrong with her mind.”

“What?” Helspeth looked to her left, thinking she had seen motion there. There was nothing to see now.

“There is a problem. But it’s her brain, not her soul or spirit.”

“Is she possessed?”

“She’s considered that herself. But what possesses her is her own body. Something inside her doesn’t work right.”

“There’s a disease that makes you insane?”

“Several, actually. Ergotism is common.”

“But that’s caused by rotted grain, isn’t it?”

“It’s a poison from rye that gets infested with mold. In Katrin’s case, her own body produces the poison. The disease runs in her family.”

“I could go crazy…?”

“It’s on her mother’s side. One of her grandfathers died of it. That was a spectacular long bout of madness. They kept him in restraints for sixteen years. His sister died of the same disease as a baby. There were others who suffered from it, too. Every other generation or so, going back hundreds of years.”

Helspeth made a grand intellectual leap. “Could this disease be why Katrin’s babies died before they were born?”

“Maybe. Or two bad pregnancies could have pushed her into a more virulent stage. All politically disappointing, certainly. So much more dramatic to fling about accusations of baneful sorcery.”

“But…” There was that eye-corner flicker again, with nothing there when she looked. “But Katrin has all those uncles. Her mother’s brothers. None of their families have suffered mental problems.”

“That we know about. The lords of Machen keep the family burden quiet.”

“So. Stipulating all that, what’s changed for me?”

“First, believe that Katrin is past her time of sporadic and mild flare-ups and is headed into a phase where the disease will distort her thinking most of the time. If it isn’t recognized and dealt with she could do a lot of damage. More damage, and bigger. Her recent choices have been irrational. Though sheer boldness has seen them work out.”

“She has the Commander of the Righteous to make that happen. What can I do? I won’t conspire against her.”

“Discuss it with her uncles when they pass through here, headed for the war. Invoke me as the source of your concern. They’ll listen. They’ll have to buy in before anything can be done.”

“Damnit! What’s going on over there?” Helspeth pointed. She had sensed movement in a corner to her left. And something like a worm of black smoke had begun to emerge from a crack near the base of the wall in front of her.

Renfrow swore. “I assumed the room would stay good because I was gone only a little while. Lesson, Princess. Never assume.”

Renfrow released his surviving flying worms. They had recovered nicely. They attacked and devoured the worm of smoke. Renfrow repeated himself, shaken. “Never assume.” Because, suddenly, there was another man in the room. A man all in brown.

Helspeth thought she had seen him before. In the background, around Piper Hecht. He offered a slight bow, an amused smile, and told Ferris Renfrow, “Time to go to work, Brother Lester. You’re out here having fun while everybody else is getting old waiting at the Great Sky Fortress.”

Renfrow seemed both at a loss for words and cowed. Which stunned Helspeth. This man must be something fierce if he intimidated Ferris Renfrow.

The man extended a hand. “Let me do the honors, Brother Temagat. Your method is too slow.”

Renfrow allowed him to take hold.

“Count downward from ten,” the invader ordered. He looked Helspeth in the eye. “Piper sends hugs and kisses.” Then he turned edgewise somehow with Renfrow and they disappeared.

Renfrow had not recovered his flying night crawlers. Helspeth left them to rule the quiet room. She got out. Noting exactly who was nearby and might have been trying to spy.

Hugs and kisses? She shuddered. It felt delicious. And she felt silly as a thirteen-year-old peasant girl being admired for the way she had begun to fill out. 41. From Brothe to the Great Sky Fortress Cloven Februaren’s busy life got busier. Leaving Piper Hecht, he turned sideways into a Delari town house in the process of being invaded by a mob. Muniero was not home. Mrs. Creedon was absent as well. Felske was sprawled on the main hall floor, bleeding. Her husband was being beaten nearby.

The invaders had begun to spread out to see what they could steal.

The Ninth Unknown flickered into being only for the instant it took to assess the situation. Then he flickered around the town house with a dagger only slightly wider than a knitting needle. He was fast. He hit from behind. The results were not pretty but cleanup would not be onerous. Nobody did much bleeding.

The man in brown gave those who tried to leave first priority, picking off ringleaders and those tormenting Turking when there were no would-be escapees. Lastly, he worked on isolated looters.

He was determined to make a statement not to be forgotten.

He worked at murder quickly and efficiently, but with less success than he had hoped. So many transitions left him disoriented. Then some raiders did manage to get away.

The Ninth Unknown kept at it the best he could, till he calmed down enough to recall that he had left Lila with Piper. If she translated into the town house…

The last invader fled. Februaren turned to the fallen. He discovered that Felske was not dead, just badly mauled and unconscious, her honor uncompromised. Turking had suffered more physical damage.

Februaren’s healing skills were slight but he did what he could. And worried about Muniero and Mrs. Creedon.

Snicker. Maybe they eloped.

Principat? Delari returned shortly before sunrise. He did not ask what had happened. The obvious declared itself. He went into a cold rage so fierce that it made the Ninth Unknown uncomfortable. “Take it easy, Muno.”

“I’m under control. Angry enough to chew granite, but under control.” He glared around. “We need to get going with the cleanup and repairs. How are those two?”

“They’ll live. And recover nicely if you get a healer in soon. Any idea what became of Mrs. Creedon?”

“No. Sometimes she goes to help with her mother, who’s dying. I’ll get the healer in a minute. What about Lila?”

“She didn’t come back here. I assume she went straight to Anna.”

“Make sure. Did you inspect the quiet room?”

“No. Been keeping these two breathing. And chasing off people who want souvenirs.”

Bronte Doneto’s habit was to keep his private life private and well separated from his public life. He had neither wife nor children, but like most high churchmen, he had a mistress, the little-known Carmella Dometia. He kept Donna Carmella in a comfortable house close by his own city home. Carmella’s husband’s career kept him overseas, in Hypraxium of the Eastern Empire, where, till recently, he had overseen Benedocto commercial interests. Fortune smiled upon Gondolfo Dometia when the Interregnum ended and Serenity assumed office. Gondolfo became Patriarchal ambassador to the Golden Gate. Which he would remain as long as Bronte Doneto sat the Patriarchal throne.

Serenity’s fortune did not shine as brightly upon his beloved.

Donna Carmella seldom saw her lover. Not that she minded. She had a limited appetite for men. Doneto was not blind to that but loved her nonetheless. She was, perhaps, the only soul outside himself that he did love.

Donna Carmella maintained a staff of four. Much of the time a small guest suite housed a woman who shared her peculiar tastes, though seldom the same woman for long. Carmella Dometia’s infatuations did not last. Her passions were blistering but brief.

Donna Carmella wakened in the heart of a night when she had set extra wards because of unrest in the city. Her connection with the Patriarch might be unknown to the mob but it was no secret in Collegium circles, where Serenity’s enemies were found.

The extra wards did no good. Death came calling.

He wakened her himself.

She was more startled than frightened. Her visitor was old and shabby and frail. He smelled like he had not bathed in weeks.

“Who?… What?”

“Your good friend made a lethal mistake, sad, beautiful lady. He tried to have murder done. Failure doesn’t absolve him. I shan’t be as cruel as his emissaries.”

A lightning thrust drove a slim blade in under a generous breast.

The old man drifted from room to room. He left no one alive. The message had to be as loud as the blare of a brass trumpet beside the ear.

He left six human corpses, two dead dogs, two dead parrots, and a dead cat. Then he conjured forth rats and mice to make clear the full extent of his displeasure.

He was in the kitchen, dealing with the last rat, when he sensed life sparks down below.

Had someone hidden in the cellar?

No. Some unanticipated victims of Bronte Doneto were imprisoned down there. People with special significance to the man who had taken the miter. People whose fate he wanted kept hidden from everyone but himself and his wicked woman.

The assassin knew regret. Regret that he had slain the woman who had the answers before he discovered the need to ask her questions.

The Ninth Unknown turned into being inside the main dining room of the Delari town house. “Muno! Come see what I found!” A full day’s labor had not cleared all the wreckage.

Delari shuffled out of the kitchen, followed by Mrs. Creedon. The cook moved slower than did the Principat?. She was deathly pale. She was in deep emotional shock. The horror would not let her go.

Delari said, “I was right. She went to help with her mother.” The elder woman was known to be engaged in a long, slow, painful process of dying.

“But look what I found, Muno.”

Delari moved closer, squinting at Februaren’s emaciated, filthy, feeble companion. “Armand? Is that you?”

“It is, Muno. Get that healer back. I’ve got more to bring.” He turned sideways, leaving Delari to deal with the catamite.

“Mrs. Creedon. If you would. Brother Lomas is with Turking and Felske. Bring him here, please.”

He studied Armand. He saw no signs of torture but the boy had not been properly fed. He had suffered illnesses as a result. He was sick right now. Doneto must have caught him the day Hugo Mongoz died. Which explained why he had not been seen for so long.

Cloven Februaren turned into being with another liberated guest of Donna Carmella. “I don’t know this one, Muno. I’m sure he’ll have interesting stories to tell. Unless he’s completely mad.”

Mrs. Creedon arrived with Brother Lomas. The healing brother was appalled by the condition of the liberated men. “This is unconscionable. Who could have worked this horror?”

Februaren said, “The same man who attacked this house. But you won’t say a word. Understand? Heal broken bodies, and hearts if you can, but forget politics. Muno, there’s one more. You’ll be amazed.”

The man in brown left that room before he turned sideways. He reversed the process when he returned. “Last one. Not in as bad shape as the others.”

“Pella?”

Days passed before the deaths at the Dometia establishment were discovered. The comings and goings of carrion birds through glassless upper-story windows, and the buzzing of death flies, finally attracted attention.

The news reached Serenity quickly.

Distraught over damage done his own wonderful city residence, the Patriarch was in a fragile state. This news crushed him. He did nothing for three days. Then he swore an oath: He would take his revenge on an epic scale, though he was not sure who his target ought to be.

The culprit would not have been shy about having his identity revealed. But Heris turned up before the ugliness at Donna Carmella’s home was discovered. The old man awaited that discovery as necessary before he took Serenity deeper into a hell on earth.

Ostarega the Malicious was set to demonstrate a good deal more malice.

It was evening. Februaren had spent a long day scouting. He would have Lila relay the information to Piper.

He spent time daily tracking Pinkus Ghort and other players up north. Ghort had suffered savage partisan attacks leaving the Connec, then had fought his way through Viscesment, where the locals tried to hold the bridges. They learned that Pinkus Ghort knew how to get the best out of his few falcons. He left Viscesment burning, its streets littered with corpses.

Ghort passed through Ormienden and Dromedan and the coastal hills, collecting Patriarchal garrisons, then ran into Imperial troops near Alicea. Skirmishing ensued. The Imperials backed off but only until they received reinforcements.

The Grand Duke Hilandle, following plans laid down by Johannes Blackboots, had marched westward across northern Firaldia after leaving the Remayne Pass. He planned to approach Brothe along the West Way. He joined local Imperials harassing the Captain-General and forced him to turn and fight.

The engagement was sporadic. Each side used its few falcons freely. The Imperials deployed some unexpected sorcery when Ferris Renfrow joined them.

On the other side, supposedly plodding Pinkus Ghort demonstrated a flair for cavalry maneuver. His light horse neutralized the Imperial knights by nipping their flanks and threatening the Imperial train.

The engagement remained mainly one of maneuver. Casualties were light. Each commander was amazed by the competence of the other. Preconceptions had to be overcome.

Overall, Captain-General Pinkus Ghort won the honors. He extricated his force. He left the Grand Duke unwilling to launch a pell-mell pursuit.

Such was the situation when the Ninth Unknown returned to the Delari town house in quest of a decent meal and a good night’s sleep and found Heris waiting.

“Heris. Girl. You’re looking older.” He wanted to bite his tongue. To chew the gold right off it. You did not say that even to a woman much less a slave to vanity than the rest of her species. But it was true. Time differences between the middle world and the Realm of the Gods had left Heris visibly more mature.

She needed fresh clothing, too.

“Thank you, Double Great. You’re looking well yourself.”

“I look like death warmed over. My life is hell on a broomstick. Never a moment’s respite. I expect you turning up is a sign that it’s all going to get worse.”

“The Aelen Kofer brought the falcons. They’ve completed the other arrangements I wanted. We’re waiting on you and the Bastard.”

The old man looked to Principat? Delari, who had stood by without comment. Delari shrugged.

Februaren said, “I insist on a decent meal, a good night’s sleep, then another decent meal. Muno. How are our guests?”

“Quiet room.”

“Yeah. All right.” Heris had not heard the story. “After supper. I’m famished. Is Mrs. Creedon still capable?”

“Perfectly. Her kitchen was damaged, not her. The real misery is having to do without Turking and Felske.”

That part of the story, Februaren saw, was no mystery to the girl. And nothing there needed hiding from eavesdroppers.

The visit in the quiet room was brief. Delari gave Heris the details of the raid. “They must have watched me for a long time. Sadly, I am a creature of habit. Mrs. Creedon isn’t. Her being out at the same time was sheer happenstance but lucky for her.”

Heris said, “You mentioned guests. Which is why we’re in here, isn’t it?”

The Ninth Unknown explained, “I rescued three prisoners from the Dometia woman’s cellar. I left two more who died not long enough ago to be skeletons. They hadn’t been robbed. They were Brotherhood of War. Muno thinks they were Witchfinders that Bronte Doneto considered dangerous witnesses. Maybe the last two men, besides Doneto, who knew what he was up to in the catacombs, back when. It’s an easy guess why he had the catamite, Armand, and Pella locked…”

“Pella? Our Pella?”

“The very one. He finally got out and had himself an adventure. He should be more pliable, now. If he has the sense God gave a toad. It’s pure luck he isn’t still down there.” Februaren mused, “I wonder… You think it might’ve been a better lesson if I’d left him there for somebody to find after the bodies are discovered? Might’ve made a huge political splash, too.”

Heris said, “They’ll find the dead Witchfinders, won’t they?”

Principat? Delari said, “I despair of the boy’s capacity to learn. He is recovering, though. The others aren’t doing as well. They might have been down there too long.”

Heris demanded, “The Patriarch meant to get at Piper and Grandfather through Pella and Armand?”

“Mostly your brother, I think,” Delari said. “Armand was another agent of Dreanger who came over before Piper did. They knew each other. Armand might have said something he shouldn’t and Doneto was saving him for the right time.”

Februaren said, “Pella says he wasn’t tortured. He can’t speak for the others. He was only there a few days, while Serenity was busy looking for ways to save his own ass.”

Heris sat quietly, digesting information. Minutes passed. Finally, “Are we going to let Serenity know that we don’t approve of his behavior?”

Even Februaren was startled. “Dear girl! You don’t think Donna Carmella was enough?”

“Oh. Yeah. I suppose. Was she really that important to him? Hell. Never mind. We’ll take a closer look once we’re done in the Realm of the Gods. I need time in a good bed and a good breakfast afterward, myself.”

Bronte Doneto, on becoming Patriarch, had not moved his personal household into Krois. No Patriarch did. The Patriarchal apartment in that great fortress was part of the mystery of the position. As all Patriarchs did, Doneto left his home in the care of trusted relatives, protected by powerful sorceries.

In the wee hours a cloaked figure materialized in the hallway outside the room Principat? Bronte Doneto had used as his personal work space and den, where he kept his most treasured possessions, including an extensive collection of rare wines and spirits. The office was guarded by an equally extensive collection of deadly spells. Anything living entering that room would die instantly. Fallen insects marked the kill line.

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.”

“Got you. Hanging around with them probably helped, too. So. Here we go. Off to the other one. Carry on, boys. You’re doing a wonderful job.”

Jarneyn’s son, called Copper, had picked up some middle-world Firaldian from Heris, Asgrimmur, and the Ninth Unknown. Copper was in charge of the second and even bigger Aelen Kofer machine. Heris demanded, “Why haven’t you shot the damned thing yet?”

“We were directed not to engage until you were here to see the effect of each shot.”

Heris muttered something about beginning to understand the frustrations her brother often felt. “All right. Talk to me. What are you going to do, Copper? And how did you come by that name?”

His companions snickered. Heris did not miss the fact that they understood her question fine. Then recalled that when they cared to the Aelen Kofer commanded the mythic power to understand all languages. When they failed to understand they did so deliberately.

Copper said, “It’s a bad joke. I did something stupid a few hundred years ago.”

“All right. When I need to know I’ll ask Iron Eyes. What are you doing?”

In part, that was obvious. The dwarves were cranking the ballista so tight it shrieked in protest.

Copper said, “Velocity will be critical, first shot. That will be a missile we cobbled together while we were waiting.” By gesture he invited her closer to the engine, a bow type with long arms crafted of laminated horn from a beast that did not exist in the middle world.

Done cranking, the dwarves moved to their ammunition, carefully arranged on the flattest ground available. Heris counted eight shafts, each fourteen feet long. They ranged from three to six inches in diameter. The one selected was six inches thick and appeared to be made of ice in imitation of a fluted marble column. The head flared out to a foot wide, beginning three feet from the end. That head was hollowed back in a cone shape a foot and a half deep inside.

“That looks like ice,” Heris said.

“It is ice. Carefully frozen, then bound with strings of the sort used on the rainbow bridge. If there wasn’t an overcast you’d see the light do marvelous things.”

“How can ice hurt the Windwalker? He’s a winter god.”

“It won’t stay ice. Impact will turn the ice to water. Hot water. As one shaft splits into twenty thinner ones. The Instrumentality will have twenty jets of water shooting through him. The pain should break his concentration.”

The shaft was in place. The Aelen Kofer moved to where they could begin cranking as soon as the ballista discharged.

Copper said, “This was your idea. All we did was tinker. Which is what Aelen Kofer do. Get up on the king seat and give the old toad a poke in the eye.”

Heris allowed herself to be guided to a seat atop the engine, above and to the left of the butt of the ice shaft. Copper said, “You see two oak levers by your right hand. The nearest one is the safety capture. Push forward on that one first. When you want to loose you do the same with the farther lever. Do them in that order, left lever, right lever, or you’ll find yourself in big trouble.”

“Got it. Forward on the nearest lever, then shoot with the other one.” She rested her hand on the safety release. That lever was as long as an ax handle. She focused on the Instrumentality, whose own focus was entirely on her.

The god knew what was coming. It was poised to do something about it. Kharoulke was one hundred percent connected to the moment. Was one hundred percent outside the Realm of Night. This was a fight for existence. No other instant in the entire history of the Nine Worlds or Night mattered. This was the moment. Perhaps for Heris and the Instrumentality, both. And she felt the full weight of what will the Instrumentality retained. She should not do this wicked thing. She was Chosen…

Unexpected, sharp pain in her left buttock. She jumped, looked down. Copper winked. “You’re going to shoot, shoot, Son of Man. Left side, then right.”

Heris shoved levers. That hairy-ass runt would be sorry he had done that. She did not look at the Windwalker till the trigger lever slammed home.

The engine lurched violently as the tension in the great bow released. It slammed down again, jarring the air out of Heris’s lungs.

The god’s tongue leapt to meet the shaft of ice. For an instant psychic space filled with dark mockery. The god would brush the projectile aside. Then it would accumulate new Chosen.

The Aelen Kofer shaft had to conform to the physical laws of the middle world, in a part of that world where there was little magic left and the deity had squandered its share already.

The monster toad tongue did deflect the shaft. But that was moving too fast, carrying too much momentum, to be redirected much.

It hit just slightly off bull’s-eye. Otherwise, it performed as designed. It was, after all, an Aelen Kofer artifact.

Dwarves swarmed around the engine, getting it properly aimed again, spanned again, and loaded again. “This one is mostly salt,” Copper told her. “Khor-ben’s idea. I know not what muse moved him. Salt shouldn’t do much. On the other hand, there are iron knives inside the salt. They’ll start spinning when they release.”

Heris watched the shaft go into the tray.

Copper told her, “Left lever first, right lever second.”

“I remember.”

The engine did not buck as violently. The dwarves had seen no need for maximum velocity this time.

As the engine slammed back down Heris saw the other ballista ease into position. It got its first missile off an instant before she launched her third, a long wooden pole filled with thousands of little lead darts, each tipped with a barbed iron or silver head. The lead was expected to separate. The barbed heads were ever so slightly curved. They would not travel in a straight line as they kept creeping through divine flesh.

The wood peeled away while the shaft was in the air. The flechettes hit the Windwalker in a broad spray.

The shaft from the other engine was of the same type.

Thousands of boils and pustules appeared on the skin of the great toad. The god heaved violently, most of its mass clearing the stained and slimy shingle. A scream both physical and psychic froze the assailants. For a half minute Heris was capable of no rational thought at all.

Shaking, she pulled herself together. Downslope, the Windwalker desperately tried to do the same. Its violent heave had caused it to slide. Its leg and tail part were in the water. A sort of gray, foul mist puffed off the god where the darts had gone in.

The scream seemed to have no end.

Working like they were doing so in the face of a high wind and doubled gravity, the Aelen Kofer readied the engine again.

Heris shouted down, “One of you guys want to take a turn?”

Copper bellowed, “We can’t do that. We’re Aelen Kofer. We aren’t allowed. We only make things and explain their use.”

Heris thought that claim emanated from the stern quarters of a male bovine. Aelen Kofer could and did act when they thought they could get away with it. Whatever it might be.

Copper was hedging bets. Lawyering. Making sure he could disclaim responsibility somewhat. Despite having brought a full ration of Aelen Kofer ingenuity to the murder at hand.

Thenceforth the fight was an execution. The Windwalker was too weak. It could do nothing but take the punishment and hope to survive. And hope its enemies could not bring anything more to bear before winter came.

Winter would come. Winter would bring salvation. This coming winter would be the most ferocious in an epoch. This world would not emerge from its next winter.

“Let’s slow down,” Heris said. “Let’s let each shaft finish working before we launch another.”

The mist puffs coming off the Windwalker had become streamers. They built a cloud around the monster. Heris wanted that to clear.

She got down to stretch her legs. “Isn’t that something?” she asked the ascendant. She glanced at the sun. The day was getting on. The light might not last long enough to finish this.

“I don’t feel well,” Asgrimmur said.

“What?”

“I’m sick. I haven’t been sick like this since I suffered through that minor version of what the Windwalker is going through now.”

“But it isn’t happening to you.”

“No. In theory, it’s not. Except to those parts of me connected to the Night. The entire Night is feeling this. It’s confused, frightened, angry, and disoriented. And fully aware that something unprecedented is happening.”

“Your Old Ones, too?”

“Especially them.”

“The other Old Ones?”

“I don’t think so. They’re in a place outside the Nine Worlds and only the Nine Worlds are connected to the Night.”

“Your Old Ones. The rest of the Night. They can’t possibly feel sorry for this thing.”

“The Banished, not so much. The Walker… It isn’t sympathy. It’s fear and all the things the rest of the Night feels. And… No. That doesn’t make sense. Does it? A kind of guilt, despair, then another kind of guilt?”

“Who said the man is confused? That’s clear as a smack in the teeth. Time for me to take a couple more shots.” The steam had cleared off the Windwalker. The mottled, festering remnants of the toad did not retain a third of the mass that had been there before the attack began.

Her first shot set the surface of the Windwalker to bubbling like hot tar. Heris heard the bubbles bursting. Each vented a fat puff of steam. The toad soon disappeared inside another cloud.

Heris leaned back.

The ascendant climbed up and hung on to the side of her seat. “I’ve made sense of what the Walker is feeling. He sees all this as his fault. He now thinks you’ll actually kill the Windwalker. Being selfish, as gods are, he doesn’t care what that means for the Night. He does think that it means you won’t find it necessary to release the other Old Ones.”

“That wouldn’t hurt my feelings. Not having to try. Be pretty damned anticlimactic after all the work we’ve done to make it happen, though.”

“Yes. Just so.”

“What does that mean?”

“That the Walker is sure you won’t let the work go to waste. That, since you don’t need them now, you’ll bring them out to destroy them.”

Heris thought about that. And found it a not unappealing plan. But entirely unnecessary. The Old Ones could be kept forever harmless right where they were.

Asgrimmur said, “The Walker now believes the Old Ones made a huge miscalculation when they conscripted us Andorayans to use against a man who accidentally discovered a way to murder the Instrumentalities of the Night. But didn’t know that till the Night itself made him understand.”

“Yeah. That was a real screwup.”

“And now facts hitherto unnoticed have crept into the Walker’s awareness. It’s possible that the Godslayer himself was misidentified.”

“What?” Heris eased a hand toward one of her knives.

“You were a slave when the Esther’s Wood thing happened. In the Holy Lands. Less than twenty miles away. An imperceptible separation seen from the Great Sky Fortress, centuries earlier. The Walker thinks distance, time, and coincidence might have resulted in picking the wrong Godslayer.”

“Horse hockey.” And muttered something about keeping it in the family.

“You’re in the process of killing what, once upon a time, was the most terrible Instrumentality of all. A weakened Kharoulke but the real thing, not some ghost of a god raised up by a lunatic sorcerer with a lust for immortality. And you have it in your power to extinguish an entire pantheon and one of the Nine Worlds.”

“More horse puckey, Asgrimmur. Get down. Time for another shot.”

Shafts from both engines struck the Windwalker. God flesh surged violently but did not come down in the water this time.

The violence continued, as though the god’s back had been broken.

Asgrimmur swore. “Oh, shit! Get down from there, Heris.”

Copper snarled, “Down, woman! Down!” He and his people started crawling under the nearest chunks of basalt.

Heris felt the imminence. She dropped between skittering rocks, turned an ankle, made cover with an instant to spare.

A blinding flash. A roar that overshadowed all the firepowder roars Heris ever heard. The earth shook, rattled, and bucked. Scree slipped. Boulders went bounding or sliding downslope. Somebody shrieked as his hiding place fell in on him. For an instant the air was too hot to breathe. Then a ferocious wind came rushing downhill.

A massive fireball climbed toward and tore into the low overcast.

“Well,” Heris muttered. “This is what Piper saw when the god worm died. Damn! Good thing the old asshole was worn down to where he didn’t have anything left.”

She could not hear herself. Nor anything else. Just as well. Her companions did not need to follow her ramblings.

She did review what Piper had said about the incident with the god worm.

An egg. There should be some kind of egg. Piper had been collecting those since he started killing Instrumentalities. Better find out if there was one of those here.

Asgrimmur and Copper both yelled and waved as she headed downhill. She did not have to pretend she did not hear them.

The explosion had not consumed the Instrumentality completely. Slime and chunks of rotten “lard” were everywhere, including on the water of the Ormo Strait. The stench was brutal. But there was no more sense of a divine presence. The opposite was true. There was a vacuum, an impression that something important had gone missing. Heris felt an abiding sorrow that was not at all natural.

She spied the egg. It was bigger than any Piper had described. It shed a strong inner light and so much heat that she had to stop fifteen feet away. The light kept fading.

She began to feel other presences, unseen Night things in search of the truth. Not threatening things, just small things come to witness. She began to hear their whispers and rustles.

Copper joined her, as did Asgrimmur. The dwarf squatted. The ascendant stood with feet widespread, his hand behind him. Both stared at the egg. Heris said, “We can go as soon as that cools down.”

Asgrimmur asked, “What do you want with it?”

“Two souls. That’s the one the Windwalker brought to this world. I want it under control. I want it taken to where it can be destroyed.”

“You’d probably be safer just leaving it.”

“Maybe. But I’m not going to do that. Copper. Have your guys started breaking down? Though it’s a crime to take those beautiful engines apart.”

Distracted, Copper shrugged. “They aren’t being destroyed, just disassembled. They’ll be stored till they’re needed again. And they will be. That’s the nature of these things.”

Heris thought Piper’s falcons were more likely to figure in future godly executions.

Asgrimmur took hold of Copper’s arm. “I’m not going back the way we came. I wouldn’t survive. I’ll walk back beside my new best friend. Unless he wants to stay here and set up housekeeping. It’ll be fun, come winter. I can teach him to ski.”

Heris saw Copper shudder. The dwarf was angry inside. But he did not refuse.

She knew she would get nowhere making the same suggestion.

The dwarf could not refuse. He was Aelen Kofer. Asgrimmur had the ghost of the All-Father inside him. Copper had no option.

Proof that every dwarf had to be out of the Realm of the Gods before any move involving trapped deities.

Heris said, “I understand. Copper. Will you make your journey on foot?”

The dwarf thought before answering, seeing what he might give away. “Yes. It’s a one-day journey. Goat carts will move the engine parts.”

“Great. You can do me a favor, then. Take this egg to the Realm of the Gods. It occurs to me that it wouldn’t be smart to be carrying it when I cut my chord across the Night.”

She saw no obvious reaction from Asgrimmur, though he had offered a gentle caution. Copper did respond, but only in the manner of someone who fancied himself serially victimized. He indulged in woe-is-me sighs.

It was always high noon in the Realm of the Gods so it did not matter that it was after dark when the egg finally cooled enough to be wrapped in leather ammo slings and moved over, whatever secret way the dwarves used, to a goat cart in the Aelen Kofer world. A moment afterward Heris turned sideways and transitioned to the Realm of the Gods.

Cloven Februaren had not yet returned. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally. She vanished into her local hole-up without announcing her return.

The Ninth Unknown and the Bastard were in the Aelen Kofer tavern with Iron Eyes when Heris, refreshed, wandered in looking for something to eat. The dwarf and the old man started barking questions.

“Copper is fine. He’s on his way. Asgrimmur is with him. He wouldn’t have survived another transition. If you’ve got the Night in you, you can get hung up out there. Forever. Double Great. We’re going to need to do some rethinking.”

“Rethinking? What do you mean? Rethinking of what?”

“What we’re going to do up there.” She jerked a thumb in the direction of the Great Sky Fortress.

“Why?” His eyes narrowed. He smelled something.

Heris smelled food. Her usual arrived. Before she tucked in, she said, “Because I killed the Windwalker already. Which I told you I could do, but you wouldn’t believe. Yesterday. With help from the Aelen Kofer.”

Iron Eyes and her human companions stared. They gaped. And they refused to believe.

“It took almost every weapon I had but I did do it in, Double Great. Copper is bringing its soul egg. Kharoulke the Windwalker is no more. And all the Night is in a panic and disarray.”

They still would not believe. They did not want to believe. “Yes. Me. A mere girl. I did it.” Her glare dared any of them to claim they had softened the Windwalker up. She had done the heavy lifting from the beginning.

Cloven Februaren said, “She’s right about the Night. I’ve never seen it as agitated as it is now.”

The Bastard nodded silent agreement.

Iron Eyes said, “We’ll wait on Copper and the ascendant. We’ll see what they have to say.”

Heris was profoundly irked but knew that was the best she could expect. For now.