Swordmage

THIRTEEN

24 Ches, the Year of the Ageless One

Geran and Hamil rode out from Rosestone Abbey two hours after sunrise. The morning was dank and gray, but the bitter cold of the previous night had passed in the dark hours before dawn. It was wet and windy on the Highfells, but there was no sign of the grim specters that had dogged their heels the night before.

They rode for most of the morning in silence, heading westward from the abbey. The city of Thentia stood a little less than fifty miles off in that direction, and the two travelers soon found their way onto a rough, lightly traveled trail between Hulburg and Thentia that meandered past Rosestone. Most traffic between the two cities went by sea or followed the so-called Ruined Way closer to the coast, which was relatively level and wide enough for cart traffic. Geran had come by the abbey’s path once or twice as a young man, but he’d never followed it all the way to Thentia.

A few miles from the abbey, the trail started to climb along the bare shoulders of brown, sere hills, some of the highest prominences to be found in the Highfells. Geran began to watch the trailside more carefully for the landmark the Initiate Mother had told him about, and soon he found it-the old stone foundations of a long-vanished watchtower.

“We turn here,” he told Hamil.

The halfling glanced at the old ruins. “Who put a tower here?” he wondered.

“Mother Mara said that this old path used to be an important road of old Thentur. I suppose it fell into disuse when war wrecked the kingdom and Hulburg-the old city, that is-was destroyed.” Geran turned his mount uphill and left the path, picking his way toward the bare stony hilltop. “It shouldn’t be far now.”

There was a very faint track above the old trail. It wound higher up the hillside. Geran supposed that the view over the moorlands would have been spectacular on a clear day, but as the weather was overcast, the hilltop was shrouded in blowing mist. They crossed over a shallow saddle, and there on the south-facing slope of the hill stood a large, solitary burial mound.

“I think this is it,” Geran said. He reined in before the mound and swung himself down from the saddle. Like the other barrows they had visited in the last couple of days, it was a circular mound covered with turf. A waist-high wall of crumbling fieldstone edged the mound, so that the whole thing looked a little like a large, windowless storehouse half-sunk into the dry grass of the hillside. He scrambled up onto its turf roof and climbed to the peak; it was perhaps twenty-five yards in diameter, a little larger than some of the others they had seen, but not by much. Near the top Geran found a shallow set of stone steps that descended four or five feet and ended in a mortared wall beneath a large keystone-a keystone engraved with an ancient sunrise design. “It’s got Lathander’s mark on it,” he called to Hamil.

“It seems to be the right age and construction,” the halfling answered. He shaded his eyes and scanned the hillside around them for a long moment, looking for any sign that they were not alone, and then shrugged and slid down from his Teshan pony. “Is it open?”

“No, we’ll have to dig.”

“What about the harmach’s law?”

“If I’ve got good reason for what I’m doing, my uncle will understand,” Geran answered. He didn’t like the idea of being the first to open a barrow, but if Mara was right and this was the tomb of Terlannis, then it was likely warded against the minions of Aesperus or any other undead spirits that might otherwise have taken up residence inside. He simply hoped that he truly had a good reason.

The Verunas already know that they’re looking for a tomb under Lathander’s mark, he told himself. It was only a matter of time until they discovered this one. He could try to disguise it-perhaps destroying or altering the sunrise mark on the keystone, for instance-but the mercenaries might be using some kind of divination magic to find the tombs they meant to search, and Geran couldn’t be certain that any steps he took to disguise the mound would fool them.

“Of course, this tomb might be better warded than anything I could come up with, and if the book’s here, then it might be best to leave it where it lies,” Geran murmured to himself. “But I won’t know that it’s safe until I see for myself. If it’s well protected, I can leave it here and do what I can to disguise the mound. If it’s not, then I have to hope that the Verunas never stumble across this place, or I’ve got to remove it if I want to keep it away from the Verunas… as well as that tiefling we met.”

Do you have a better hiding spot in mind? Hamil said silently. The halfling might not have been close enough to hear Geran muttering to himself, but apparently he’d been close enough to catch Geran’s thoughts with his mind.

“Keep it in the vaults of Griffonwatch? Or give it to the Initiate Mother and let her look after it since it belonged to a priestess of Lathander?” Geran trotted back down to the mound’s edge and hopped down. “For that matter, I could do worse than to hide it under a rock in some lonely hollow out here in the Highfells. If we actually find it, I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

They picketed the horses at the base of the mound and carried their saddlebags and provisions back to the stairwell at the top. Then Geran took a heavy pry bar down the filled-in stairway and set to work on the old mortar and stone under the sunrise symbol. There was not room for more than one to work at a time, but Hamil helped carry up the stones Geran dislodged. The halfling was careful to spread out the rubble instead of leaving it in a pile that might be seen from a distance.

After half an hour of vigorous work, Geran broke through the mortared wall to a space beyond. Cold, stale air sighed out of the opening. He quickly backed away to avoid breathing in the barrow-air. Old, foul air could kill the unwary, so he decided to let the barrow breathe while he and Hamil sat a short distance away and ate a cold lunch. At one point Geran stood to stretch, and he thought he glimpsed a shadow slinking beneath the bare stone of the hilltop, a shadow where one shouldn’t have been. But when he stared up at the spot, he saw nothing unusual.

“Is our friend back?” Hamil asked.

“I’m not sure. I didn’t get a very good look-it could have been anything.” Geran glanced over to the picket line, but the horses placidly grazed, plainly unconcerned. “The horses don’t seem nervous.”

“I’m not reassured.”

“Nor am I.” Geran rested a little longer before he returned to the stairwell and attacked the wall again, working to make a hole big enough to wriggle through. Despite the chill mist that blew over the Highfells, Geran was soon streaming with sweat, but he shed his cloak and kept at it until he had an opening he could squeeze through.

“You should knock out a few more stones,” Hamil observed. “You might get a small pony through there, but I don’t think you could fit a draft horse yet.”

“Feel free to have a go at it,” Geran said with a snort.

“It’s not my fault that my people have a sensible stature, while all you Big Folk take up three times as much room as a normal person and manage to get half as much done. I could’ve been in that barrow half an hour ago.”

“Well, then, why didn’t you go on ahead?”

“I didn’t want to get lonely,” Hamil answered.

Geran shook his head and turned away. He decided to examine his shields and wards before going any farther; the barrows they’d seen before had been opened by others, but this one hadn’t felt fresh air in hundreds of years. They’d seen no evidence of traps or guardians in the other Lathanderian tombs, but that didn’t mean the tomb of Terlannis would be safe. Closing his eyes, he stilled his thoughts and focused his awareness into a single bright point. The Elvish swordmage spells rolled easily from his heart and will as he renewed the spells he routinely wore. To these he added another defense and whispered the words to summon the pale aura of the silversteel veil. Finally, for good measure, he drew his elfmade sword and passed his palm over the eldritch steel. “Reith arroch, reith ne sylle,” he chanted softly. A thin white radiance began to shine in the blade.

Hamil looked up from where he stood, stringing his bow. “I don’t recognize that one.”

“It’s a spell of sharpness, but it’s especially baleful to ghosts and other such spirits.” Sword in hand, Geran descended the narrow stairwell again and peered once more through the dark opening he’d made below. A small, dusty passage led deeper into the mound, but he saw nothing else. Carefully he set one foot on the far side and ducked under the sill, working his way inside. In the shadows, the pale radiance of his sword began to shine more brightly, driving back the darkness. Geran advanced a few steps down the passage, and Hamil followed a moment later, an arrow laid across his small horn bow. The air was cold and stale.

The passage led to an antechamber, where two dark doorways beckoned. A niche in the wall between the low doorways held a small statue of an angel, made from some porous white stone that was splotched green and black with mildew. Geran ventured right first and descended two steps into a larger, barrel-vaulted chamber. Here stood two full-sized statues of armored warriors, one on each side of a heavy frieze in bronze that was set into the far wall. A faint yellow light spell still glimmered in a small, tarnished lantern suspended from the ceiling. The swordmage studied the chamber from the doorway for a long moment and nodded. “I think it’s a memorial,” he told Hamil. “The crypt must be in the other room.”

“What does it say?” Hamil asked.

Geran moved closer to the frieze. It showed a battle scene; a lady in armor riding a great charger led soldiers over a drawbridge against the gates of a dark castle. Mailed skeletons stood in serried ranks against the lady and her soldiers, but she was raising high a rod with a sunburst device for its head. Rays sprang from the rod, striking the dark castle’s gates, which seemed to go up in fire at their touch, while skeletons in the way withered away like autumn leaves. Dethek runes nearly filled in with dust and debris were cut into the smoothly dressed stone beneath. Geran knelt and brushed his hand over the old runes until he could make them out.

“Old Tesharan again,” he murmured. “I think it says something like, ‘The downfall of the Wailing Tower… the-glory? fire? — of Lathander burns the’… something ‘warriors’… ‘Aesperus is cast down in defeat… High’… something… ‘Terlannis in her hour of victory, may Lathander’s… blessing?… follow after her forever.’”

“So this is Terlannis’s crypt.” Hamil padded closer and studied the frieze himself before pointing to the far corner of the work. “Look, I bet that’s Aesperus there. He doesn’t seem very happy.”

Geran followed Hamil’s finger. Flanked by knights in black armor, a skeletal king in regal robes fled from the destruction of the gates, going down into some sort of tunnel or doorway that disappeared from view. “It shows events pretty much as Mother Mara explained them. Terlannis destroyed the tower, and Aesperus fled into some dungeon or retreat below his fortress. Let’s have a look around and see if the book is hidden somewhere in this room.”

They carefully tapped, poked, and prodded at the frieze, the warrior statues, even the walls and the floors as thoroughly as they could, but they found no secret compartments or hidden doors. Giving up for the moment, Geran returned to the antechamber and tried the other doorway. This led down several steps into another barrel-vaulted room, dominated by a great stone crypt. Its lid was carved in the image of a stern woman in plate armor lying in repose, her hands holding a great sunburst emblem over her heart. The walls and floor were finished with smooth, polished stone, but the chamber was otherwise bare.

“Terlannis, I presume,” Hamil said.

“So it would seem.” Geran could make out her name cut in runes at the foot of the sarcophagus. He looked at the big stone structure and frowned. Was the book actually entombed with her remains? Digging out the stairwell to gain access to the chamber in the mound was one thing, but he found that he didn’t want to be the one to actually damage the crypt. It was possible that they might be able to drive anchoring pitons into the ceiling over the crypt and rig some sort of block and tackle… but he would still have to disturb the ancient priestess’s bones, and somehow he felt that Amaunator-Lathander-would not look kindly on that. “I hate the idea of breaking into the sarcophagus.”

“Afraid of curses? Guardian spirits?”

“Among other things, yes.” Geran looked around and sighed. “Let’s check everything else before we try the tomb itself.”

They carefully examined every corner of the room, feeling along the walls and tapping the flagstones with the pommels of their daggers. After a long, careful search, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Not really expecting much, Geran finally took a few minutes to speak a simple elven finding charm. He’d learned a thing or two about finding well-hidden things in Myth Drannor; he’d seen more than one elf-made door that simply couldn’t be found by someone who didn’t already know it was there. Doubtless the tomb was warded against such minor magic, but he figured it was worth a try. He whispered the words in Elvish… and he felt a slight tug, a gleaming in the corner of his eye, from the antechamber outside the tomb. “I think I’ve got something, Hamil,” he said, and he hurried back out to the room outside Terlannis’s crypt. He turned in a small circle, trying to sharpen the glimmer of perception he’d felt, and then his eye fell on the small statue of the angel in its niche.

“There,” he breathed. He bent close to examine the small statue in its niche and thought he could make out a paper-thin seam in the joining of its arm to its shoulder. “Hamil, have a look at this.”

The halfling moved up close beside him and peered at the angel statue. Geran had learned to respect Hamil’s skill with subtle traps, hidden triggers, and concealed mechanisms during their time with the Dragon Shields; the halfling had made it his business to know as much as he could about such devices, prowling the curio shops and antique collections of every city in the Vast to collect clever puzzles, charms, locks, and even toys in order to study the workings of each. Hamil’s house in Tantras was littered with those devices he prized enough to display for visitors… and guarded by more subtle and dangerous ones to make sure that no uninvited visitors would find it safe to linger there.

Hamil studied the statue for a long time, then examined the niche all around it carefully. Finally, he drew out from a pouch at his belt a small paper tube full of silvery powder, which he blew out over the statue. It sparkled oddly in the shadows as it settled. “No hidden rune-traps or symbols,” he said. “I think it’s a simple lever. Likely it opens a hidden panel or doorway.”

Geran glanced around the antechamber. “It’s very well hidden, then. We both had a good look here.”

“Should I pull it?”

“I really don’t want to try the sarcophagus before we’ve exhausted all other options. Give it a try.”

“Stand back,” Hamil warned.

The halfling slid to one side of the niche, pressed himself up against the wall, and gently pulled the angel’s arm toward him. The seam between arm and body widened. Then Hamil rotated the arm back-it did not move that way far at all-reversed his motion, and twisted it forward. It moved a good quarter-turn and clicked, and the whole statue rose a quarter of an inch; the halfling rotated the angel on its base until he heard another faint click, and he raised the arm again until it locked back in place.

Metal and stone groaned somewhere under the feet, chains clanked slowly, and suddenly the floor of the antechamber began to sink. Geran quickly stepped back into the doorway leading to Terlannis’s crypt, while Hamil moved to the door opposite. A section of floor about ten feet across sank until it was a good eight feet lower than it had been, revealing a door of brightly polished bronze, untarnished despite the age of the mound. Hamil looked across the space to Geran. “I guess it was an elevator,” he said. “The sounds you heard were the counterweights. Clever. I didn’t expect the floor to move.”

Geran stooped down to grip the stone sill, swung himself over the edge, and dropped easily to the floor. He crossed over to give Hamil a hand down, since it was a long drop for the halfling, and the two companions turned their attention to the polished bronze door. It was inscribed with a great sunburst, ringed by a strange, flowing script.

“What does it say?” Hamil asked him.

“I don’t have the faintest idea. I think the script might be Celestial, but I can’t read a word of it.” The swordmage frowned and whispered another spell of perception-this one to reveal the presence of magic. The beautiful lettering shone with a fiery gold radiance in his eyes, and he felt the old, undiminished strength of ancient wards. “It’s divine magic of some kind. Some sort of spell of concealment? I can’t be sure.”

“Well, that would stand to reason. If the Lathanderians buried something here to keep it away from Aesperus, they would have used magic to deflect his efforts to scry its location.” The halfling blew a little more of his silver powder over the door, and again it sparkled as it drifted down to the flagstones. “No symbols or runes here, either, but it’s locked. Do we open it?”

“Yes. If we can find this place, so can Veruna’s soldiers.”

“All right, then.” Hamil worked for a moment on the lock and pushed the door open. Cold, dry air sighed out of the room beyond-a large, low-ceilinged hall, its roof supported by dozens of pillars. A great bronze statue of a leonine creature dominated the center of the chamber, lying with its paws outstretched on the floor and its head held high. Its face was human in shape, surrounded by a great mane. Behind the statue stood a stone chest, covered in fine carvings. Ancient sconces holding slender golden staves lined the chamber walls; as Geran and Hamil moved into the room, flickering flames guttered into life around the golden staves, giving the room a rich yellow glow.

“Well, the servants of Lathander hid a crypt below a crypt,” the halfling observed. “I admit, I didn’t expect work of such skill here.”

“The chest,” Geran said. He looked carefully at the room and did not see anything to alarm him, so he started to circle around the statue to the left.

He was only five paces from the door when the lion opened its eyes and looked at him.

The statue shuddered once, and old metal squealed against old metal as it slowly began to clamber to its feet. Geran stepped quickly back, moving away from the thing, but a bright golden fire sprang up in its eyes, and it opened its mouth to speak. In a voice that sounded like the clashing of cymbals, it roared in Old Tesharan, “Speak now the Three Secret Names and state thy purpose here, or I must destroy thee!”

A guardian construct! Hamil said in alarm. He retreated too, backing away in a different direction. Geran, what in the Nine Hells did it say?

Geran felt a pillar at his back and stopped retreating. The bronze lion was not alive, of course-it was an enchanted statue, long ago imbued with the power to animate and attack any strangers who made it into the vault chamber. It might lack the speed and ferocity of a real sphinx or lammasu or whatever it was supposed to be, but it would be a formidable war machine nonetheless, tireless and implacable. We’re supposed to know a password! he replied to Hamil.

“Answer now, interloper, or thy doom is assured!” the statue roared again.

The bronze monster was easily the size of a large horse, its clawed feet the size of dinner plates. We need time to think, Geran decided. We might be able to puzzle out the password, but not quickly. “Back out!” he said.

He turned to race for the doorway, only to spy something above the door’s lintel-a baleful golden rune inscribed on a heavy keystone, facing in toward the lion. They’d walked right under it when they entered the chamber, which was likely what had triggered the magic to animate the statue and give it a voice. But two other runic marks were cut into the stone on each side of the glowing golden one, and when Geran’s eye fell on them they kindled to life as lines of sullen crimson fire. “Wait, no!” he shouted. “Stay away from the door. There are symbols over it!”

Hamil was closer to the door than he was; when the symbols awoke, he gave a strangled cry and fell to one knee, already within the influence of the magical trap. Somehow he managed two staggering steps away from the door, but now the statue turned with a scraping of bronze and fixed its burning golden eyes on him.

“Defiler! Infidel!” the statue’s voice proclaimed. It advanced on Hamil, who still reeled from his brush with the Lathanderian runes.

“Damn!” Geran swore. They had a fight here, whether they wanted it or not. He quickly cast his dragon-scale spell, even though he was not sure how much it would help against a foe of such strength. “Theillalagh na drendir!” he whispered, and around him the cascading scales of glowing violet light shimmered into existence.

The swordmage darted forward to distract the thing from Hamil and lunged out with his blade at the statue’s eye. Elven steel clanged shrilly against ancient bronze; the impact jarred his hand, and Geran almost dropped his sword. The thing was hot, radiating heat-shimmers. The leonine monster turned on him with startling quickness for something so big and inflexible, and raked at him with its huge paw. Geran leaped back out of the way, and the statue followed, bulling its way straight at him. He saw that his thrust had dug a deep gouge just under the blank molten eye, creasing the bronze without penetrating it. He ducked behind one of the pillars in the chamber, trying to keep it between the statue and himself.

How do you destroy something made of metal? he thought furiously. He’d encountered animated statues and magical constructs before in his years with the Dragon Shields, and he well remembered that they were difficult to defeat. Some had vital mechanisms that could be ruined by a very well-aimed sword blow, but this one had been brought to life by powerful magic; as far as he could tell, it was a cast statue of bronze, hollow inside, with no vital mechanisms to destroy. The bronze itself was not even articulated; the magic of the ancient ritual that animated the thing gave the cast metal the suppleness and flexibility of living flesh.

While he tried to figure out how to deal with the thing, the statue moved around the pillar to get at him, and Geran circled away from it. It reversed its course and tried the other direction, and once again Geran moved with it. Then the bronze sphinx simply hurled itself straight at him, shouldering its way past the pillar. Stone cracked and splintered under its weight; dust sifted down from the ceiling. Geran grunted in surprise and danced back before taking his sword in a two-handed grip. He threw all his strength into a mighty cut across the statue’s face, and this time the elven steel actually parted the bronze in a shallow cut; molten red-gold fire seeped from the wound. A drop splattered the top of his boot and set the leather to smoking. Then the statue caught him with one mighty paw. Geran’s dragon-scale spell held, mostly-the deadly claws did not tear through his flesh, only scoring him lightly. But the spell did not guard against the crushing impact of the blow. He was batted away like a mouse flipped head-over-paws by a cat, and he skidded to the ground a dozen feet away.

The bronze sphinx bounded after him, but just as it raised its paw to crush his skull, a pair of arrows thudded into its golden flank. “Come on, you lump of lead!” Hamil shouted. “Chase after me for a bit!”

The halfling had rallied from his brush with the symbol spell and crouched behind a pillar on the far side of the room, firing arrows as fast as he could draw his bow. They did not penetrate far into the bronze hide, but the range was short enough for the halfling to drive the steel points half an inch into the old bronze. More molten metal began to leak from the pinprick wounds, and the statue whirled away from Geran to pursue the halfling.

Geran groaned and rolled over to all fours, slowly pushing himself to his feet. His whole left side ached from where the sphinx’s bronze paw had caught him. He found his sword lying nearby and stood again. On the other side of the chamber, the statue snapped and clawed at Hamil, who dodged from pillar to pillar, just trying to stay out of its way.

“We need a better plan, Geran!” Hamil shouted to him.

The swordmage glanced left, right, and all around as he cast about for some position or advantage over the powerful bronze sphinx. Then his eye fell on the first pillar he’d used for cover against the construct. Its head was visibly out of vertical, and deep cracks spiderwebbed its surface. A desperate idea sprang into his mind, and he quickly measured the vaulting of the ceiling with his eye.

“Stay near the wall!” he called to Hamil. “I’ll get its attention again!”

“You’re welcome to it,” Hamil answered.

Geran ignored him and charged the statue’s hindquarters, taking a strong cut at its hamstring-or at least where its hamstring would be, if it were a living creature. He creased the bronze enough to spill a little more of its molten metal and drew back quickly, even as the monster whirled to face him again.

“Come on!” he shouted. “After me!”

The construct hurtled after him, and Geran darted back several steps. At the last moment he ducked behind the damaged pillar… and the statue lunged after him in response, striking the column almost dead-on. The pillar toppled with an awful roar of shattering stone, and the ceiling over it sagged and collapsed.

“Seiroch!” Geran shouted-a spell of transposition, magic that simply teleported him from one place to another close by in the space of an instant. He flickered out from under the collapse, reappearing on the other side of the room beneath the vaulting by the wall-the strongest part of the ceiling, or so he hoped. The warm yellow light filling the chamber dimmed and failed as billowing clouds of dust and debris choked the chamber. More of the ceiling gave way, and a cascade of rock and earth poured down into the middle of the room… but finally the collapse slowed, and an eerie silence settled over the room.

Hamil coughed once on the dust and looked up at Geran. “What would you have done if the whole ceiling had come down?” he demanded.

“I was hoping that it wouldn’t.” Geran eyed the heap of debris filling the center of the chamber. He could see one great bronze paw amid the wreckage, but it was hollow, empty; there was no molten fire within. Wearily he sheathed his sword-the magical steel was unmarked from its encounter with the old bronze-and picked his way over to the stone chest against the far wall. It was carved with images of angels armed for war, carrying swords and shields. Another trap would seem redundant, but he could not be certain. “Hamil?”

The halfling joined him by the chest and quickly examined it with his silver powder and a careful visual inspection. “I think it’s safe to open.”

Geran nodded and lifted the lid, which was cleverly counterweighted so that it operated easily despite its weight. Inside, wrapped in cloth that had long since disintegrated to dusty scraps, lay a large tome bound in black leather. He reached in and lifted out the book, brushing the remnants of the wrapping away. Lettering embossed on the cover in the old Dethek runes read: The Infiernadex, being a Compilation of Spells amp; Arcane Lore set down by the Hand of Aesperus, King of Thentur. He was sorely tempted to flip it open to a random page, simply to see what sort of things Aesperus might have deemed worthy of compiling, but that was not a good idea. Reading from magical books could be quite dangerous or cause unintended consequences of all sorts. For the moment, it would be enough to secure the thing and spirit it away to some place where the sellswords in Veruna’s service couldn’t find it. Instead, he wrapped the book in a spare cloak and slipped it into his pack. “Now, we’ll have to find a new hiding place House Veruna’s men won’t suspect,” he said.

“First, we’ll have to find a way out of this chamber. I’m not eager to venture too close to those symbols again,” said Hamil. The halfling gestured at the doorway, where the symbols burned dully. The large one in the center was dark-its magic had likely ended when the animated statue was destroyed. But the other two remained active. “I suppose we could try to dig our way out. If my sense of direction is right, we’re under the memorial chamber.”

Geran looked up at the gaping hole in the ceiling and turned to the symbols gleaming over the door. “I’m afraid it would be too easy to bring the chamber above us down around our ears if we picked the wrong place to dig, but I know a spell or two that might get us past the symbols. It might take a little while, but it will be a lot easier than digging.”

“Done,” Hamil said. He sat down on the dais by the stone chest and waved toward the opposite door. “Have at it. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“There isn’t.” Geran studied the markings over the door for a long moment, then sat down gingerly to examine his own spellbook, looking for something that might work. The ceiling overhead creaked ominously, and more dust drifted down. No, tunneling out was not an option. He meant to walk out of the room by the door through which he had entered

… or did he? He looked up at the doorway, measuring the distance with his eye. “Yes, that would work,” he muttered. “But I’ll have to study new spells first. Hamil, make yourself comfortable. I have to rest a while before I can get us out of here.”