Working God's Mischief

34. Creveldia: The Unseen Path

The Ninth Unknown materialized in the square of the former Krulik and Sneigon manufactory in the Eastern Empire. It was high noon on a cool day. The tribal people who saw him thought that he had no shadow. They fled.

A woman materialized a dozen feet from the old man. She cast no shadow, either. Neither did two more women who arrived immediately.

A slim blonde just coming to her full beauty marked the eastern corner of a square aligned with the points of the compass. She sniffed. “They were here, maybe last night. Definitely since the last rain.”

Heris occupied the southern corner. Mildly envious, she said, “How can you tell? I spent more time with them. I practically snuggled up with Copper and Korban.”

“Bet they loved you running your fingers through their beards,” Cloven Februaren cracked.

Vali chided, “Maybe you snuggled so close you got used to the smell.”

Heris refused the bait. These days the girls lived to get a rise out her. Vali had a particular knack for implication wrapped in an innocuous observation. It was all in the timing, tone, and inflection.

The girl was a menace.

The old man was amused but threw no oil on the flames. The girls would not spare him.

They were not malicious, really. They were just two young women making sure the world paid for their having to suffer the indignities of puberty. Malicious mischief, really.

They were past the worst. Everyone hoped.

Februaren said, “We ought to take care of business and go before some idiot decides to test us.”

Lila responded with a snort. Despite the wonders she had witnessed lately she still considered the Ninth Unknown eighty percent blowhard. The old devil encouraged the underestimation. Someday that would let him teach a valuable lesson.

Vali sniffed. “I smell animals. And filthy people.” No surprise there. Heris had predicted that.

The Devedians had built well. The mountain people would have been foolish to let such good shelter go to waste.

Februaren said, “Let’s watch ourselves. Let’s not get hurt.”

His companions stared as though wondering what he meant.

“This way,” Lila said. “The scent is stronger from the building with the concrete foundation.”

Heris said, “That was where the owners and managers worked and lived.” She had come here before.

The girls had, too, and Februaren nearly as often as Heris. Heris growled, “That’s where Korban and his thugs took the falcons away.” The falcons Piper had left so she would have weapons to use in the Great Sky Fortress. Those falcons were, no doubt, now in the hands of the Aelen Kofer, being radically improved.

Februaren entered the building wondering loudly why the women of the family had to be so determinedly contrary.

Lila said, “They were here.” She looked at Heris. “Can you find the gateway?”

“I don’t know. They wouldn’t let me see how. More the rituals than the way but Iron Eyes was in charge. He has a big lazy streak. He wouldn’t have tried hard to hide it. He wouldn’t expect anyone to look.”

The old man agreed. “Despite being sure that I’m a master villain he would never believe that a middle-worlder was clever enough to open the way if he did stumble onto a gateway.”

Vali asked, “Even though you already did it once?”

“A fluke, obviously. Purely accidental. I was just bumbling around. So he would think. If he thought at all.”

“He can’t be that dumb.”

“Aelen Kofer aren’t stupid but they aren’t thinkers. Not in any abstract sense. They’re builders and doers. The Shining Ones worried about consequences. But not much.”

Heris said, “We’re being watched.”

“Of course we are. We’re invaders.”

Lila opened the door to the office place. She tossed something inside. A flash and bang followed.

Nothing else happened.

Heris observed, “That might not impress this bunch. They saw plenty of smoke and bang when the Deves were here.”

“Whatever. There isn’t nobody in there.” She stepped back out, pointed at curious children watching from forty yards away, laughed maniacally.

“Drama queen.” Vali sneered.

“Stick in the mud.”

“Girls. Focus,” the old man said. “This could get dangerous.”

Lila made a face, but said, “Heris, there’s an area in there with a really strong Aelen Kofer smell.” She headed back inside. The others clumped after her.

There was some chatter somewhere outside, the language unintelligible but the fright plain enough. There was no bellicosity in it.

Februaren muttered, “Why didn’t those idiots in Hypraxium put a garrison in here? It couldn’t be that hard to figure out how to make their own falcons.”

Heris said, “The Emperor believes falcons to be tools of the Adversary. He doesn’t want them included in his arsenal. His generals understood the lesson Piper taught at the Shades, though. This was where the bigwigs stayed. And the Empress when she was here. There were partitions in here, back then.”

Tribal people still chattered outside, louder but no more intelligible. Heris wondered how they had reacted to the Aelen Kofer, or if they had seen the dwarves at all.

Februaren said, “I got some of that. They won’t bother us if we don’t threaten them. They already think this building is haunted.”

A toddler in a filth-stained rag of a shirt too large for her appeared in the open doorway, fist in mouth. She needed her nose wiped. A frightened woman no older than Lila snatched her up and fled.

“I like this,” the old man said. “I don’t have to work so hard.”

Heris felt bad for the villagers but not badly enough to go away.

“They did use this place till the dwarves scared them off,” Heris observed. The grime and rubbish made a clear example of why city folks considered their country cousins subhuman. “Poverty is no excuse for this. I’ve been poor. I never lived like a pig.”

Februaren said, “Never mind. We aren’t missionaries. Lila?”

“The other end is where the smell is the strongest.”

“Let’s open a couple of windows and get some light.”

The women moved, Lila leading. Heris wondered, “Did they come through when people were living here?”

Lila said, “They did stuff to scare them off. Can’t you smell it?”

“No.” Heris had one supernatural talent. She could use the Construct to walk the Night. She was better at that, now, than the Ninth Unknown. She had no capacity whatsoever for smelling magic. Though Lila admitted she did not actually smell anything. That was just the most proximate sensory reference.

Februaren said, “It’s there. I can smell it, too. They were definitely here recently. A lot of them.”

“Recently we figured.”

“Uhm. The strength might be intentional. Maybe they left a little something for us.”

Heris, Vali, and the old man formed an arc behind Lila. The blonde focused on what was in front of her.

Heris thought she might be seeing the maturation of the Thirteenth Unknown. Lila might get picked for that before the Twelfth Unknown took over for the Eleventh.

Februaren was as intent as Lila. “Are they aware that we’re trying to get into their world?”

“How would they find out?” Then, a thought. “Oh. I see.”

“Asgrimmur.”

“He might still be in touch. The Bastard thinks he could be. He’s for sure always fluttering around in the shadows of the Shining Ones.”

Korban Iron Eyes had not been completely truthful when he declared an end to all contact between his and the middle world. There had been numerous dwarfish incursions since, usually technology-related. Heris had yet to catch them, though.

She and Februaren wanted to reach the dwarf world so they could look for a path from there to Eucereme.

The Raneul Hourlr had shown a flattering interest in Heris from the moment she decided to look. He was afraid at the same time. She was the Godslayer now.

The Old One was forthright in his interest. He was randy. Secretly, he hoped she could get through to his home world. He wanted her to believe that the Old Ones there could help resolve the Twilight, which could end the middle world.

The Ninth Unknown said he exaggerated. The deity had his personal agenda. But Hourlr would not talk to him. Hourlr could not communicate with anyone male. Nor would Heris allow him near Lila or Vali. She knew that light in his eyes. No more Bastards would drop into the middle world.

As if thought alone could conjure a devil Hourlr stepped out of the doorway vacated by the snot-nosed child without having come in from outside. “Still watching over my shoulder.”

“You are endlessly fascinating.”

“He said with a straight face.” She said with a slight blush.

“We cannot help being interested.” Fraught with double meaning.

Heris flashed a nervous smile. Hourlr was a charmer. He made his desires seem so utterly reasonable that you might find yourself making the two-back beast before you realized that he had suggested it.

She told herself she was an old campaigner in a long, tough struggle. She would not succumb. “Of course.”

The Old Ones were all charmers. Even sour old Wife could heat it up when she wanted.

Hourlr asked, “Are you sure you really want to get into the world of the dwarves?”

“Yes.” And he had been feeding the idea.

“Why?” He wanted to know if she had thought this through.

“You know why.”

“Not exactly. No. Unless you have an abiding need to see Khor-ben Jarneyn again.”

“Again said with a straight face.”

“I was not teasing, lady.”

That left Heris nervous. “What are you hinting at?”

“It’s good to be a god.”

“I would think so.” Had his agenda changed?

“You haven’t found a pathway from the middle world to Eucereme.”

“We haven’t. No.” He knew that.

“I’ll gift you with knowledge. That is because no such way has existed since the ascendant trapped the rest of us. The free Raneul did not just close the ways, they destroyed them.”

“With help from the Aelen Kofer. Of course.”

“Of course. The Raneul wouldn’t actually do any work themselves.”

“Which means I’m on the right road.” Heris grinned. “There have to be connections from the world of the dwarves. They wouldn’t let it be any other way.”

Hourlr nodded. “You might be an Instrumentality yourself, Heris Godslayer.” He reeked of charm.

The girls and the Ninth Unknown watched intently, Vali most attentively. A smoldering slow match had appeared in her left hand. Her right clutched a massive handheld falcon, pointed at the floor right now, hidden under a kerchief.

The Instrumentality had begun keeping a wary eye on Vali, unnerved by the fact that his charm had no effect.

Heris said, “We think the rest of the Shining Ones can help us here.”

“If you believe that you are deceiving yourself.”

Heris was startled. “How so?” That was a change.

“They have no reason. You cannot win commitments from them the way you extorted them from us. The ways to Eucereme are closed for a reason. The Raneul plan to evade the Twilight by sitting it out, an avoidance of destiny by abstention. Which I expect not to work.”

The more he said the more she realized that she had considered her choices from no perspective but her own-despite the Ninth Unknown’s similar argument when he tried to talk her out of this adventure.

She avoided Februaren’s eye. Smug old fart.

“I suppose.” It made sense when he said it. “Because I’m me I can’t see the doorway, but I know it’s here.” Hourlr nodded. She added, “I want to see the other world even if we never go there.”

Lila sniffed, moved in little shuffles, palms facing outward.

Februaren grunted suddenly. “What the hell? How did that…?”

“Double Great?”

“We’re about to solve a mystery. On the other side of this gateway.”

“What mystery is that?”

“Open it up. It could be my imagination.”

“Any idea how?”

Lila said, “I’ll do it.” She turned sideways.

Heris squeaked.

A rectangle of reality, shoulder-high and six feet wide, chunked backward two inches, then slid to the left, vanishing behind reality that did not move. Even the Instrumentality seemed awed.

The panel’s movement revealed Lila squatting in the mouth of a tunnel with a roof barely high enough to clear a tall dwarf’s crown. The rock appeared to be basalt. Basalt did not underlie this region. The light of the middle world, not bright back with the visitors, penetrated only a few yards into the passageway.

Vali observed, “It’s wider than it is tall.”

Lila said, “It’s really dirty, too.” She sneezed. “It would be big-time spider country if it wasn’t for regular traffic.”

The Instrumentality began to glow. That light all flowed into the tunnel, illuminating it for thirty yards. It ran downhill ten degrees, straight, wide, and low, the floor cluttered with dust and stone chips.

Lila sneezed again.

The Ninth Unknown mused, “It really is,” puzzling everyone. He pushed past Lila, bent over briefly, then took a knee and stirred the detritus.

“Aha!” He held up something shiny.

Heris blurted, “Piper’s missing pendant! How did that get in here?”

Meantime, the old man picked up what looked like shreds of silk. Like something a woman might once have worn next to her skin. He seemed baffled as he slipped the shreds inside his shirt.

Heris did not miss that.

She did not mention it. It could mean anything.

The old man, moving a foot at a time, produced other bits that must have gotten tracked in by the dwarves.

Hourlr asked, “Shall we see where the tunnel goes?”

Heris suggested, “You light the way.”

“Of course.”

Lila squeezed aside. The Ninth Unknown did the same. Heris followed the Instrumentality. She told the old man, “Give me that. I’ll get it back to Piper.”

Februaren surrendered the pendant without comment.

The tunnel ended at a wall of oak planks a hundred yards directly ahead. There were gaps between planks but nothing could be seen on the other side. “It’s dark over there,” Februaren said.

“Thus spake the Lord of the Obvious,” Heris said. “How come there aren’t any stars or anything?”

“The sky is overcast,” Hourlr said. “Can’t you feel the rain?”

Cold, damp air pushed through between planks.

Februaren predicted, “She’ll want to go ahead anyway.”

Vali said, “If we left the door open the cold air would cool things off up there … What?”

Even Lila looked at Vali like she wondered how her mind worked.

Hourlr said, “Leaving it open is not an option.”

Heris kicked a plank, hard, by throwing a foot out sideways. Something cracked, evidently not part of her. She kicked again.

Voices came down the tunnel. The Ninth Unknown cocked an ear. “Tribesmen. How long have we been down here?”

“Four minutes,” Heris replied. She kicked again. Nails squeaked. The right end of the plank backed off half a foot.

Hourlr said, “For them it has been an hour. They wonder where we have gotten to. A few are working themselves up to come find out.”

“You can understand them?” Heris asked.

“Some.”

“I thought time matched up between the middle world and the world of the dwarves.” She noted that Hourlr had begun to frown fiercely.

The Instrumentality got hold of the plank she had been kicking, pulled it back into place. “This is a trap. That isn’t Dwarvenholm. It’s the world of the giants. Help me.”

His glow revealed that the nails had been driven from the tunnel side. Heris’s kicks had broken the plank end.

Dawn began on the other side.

The Ninth Unknown said, “Vali, go scare those people away. Lila, work your way up the tunnel and find the way the dwarves really used. We’ll stay here and make sure nothing breaks through.”

There was enough light to reveal some of that world-in particular, that world’s creatures approaching. They did not conform to Heris’s preconception. The nearest pair resembled very large scorpions moving sluggishly in the cold and damp. Farther off, things like giant crabs moved more briskly, headed toward the gateway. The scorpions were a brownish yellow, the crabs pale red.

Hourlr told Heris, “Those are not the giants. Those are their watchdogs. But the giants are coming. We’ll need this sealed completely before they get here. Stand back. Let me work.”

The giants, Heris recalled, were mortal enemies of those who hailed from the Realm of the Gods. She recalled the giant bones scattered down the cliffs below the Great Sky Fortress.

“Done!” Hourlr muttered. “And just in time. Have a look.” Heris squinted through a gap between planks.

A troop of huge beings loomed over a ridgeline half a mile away, barely visible through the drizzle. They advanced with vast, slow strides. The biggest had to be a hundred feet tall. The ground began to tremble.

Heris grumbled, “Why don’t they collapse under their own weight?”

Hourlr said, “That’s a glamour. They are not actually that big. And they are supernatural. The Night frees them from many constraints of the natural realm.”

“Whatever. I find myself moved by an overwhelming disinterest. Let’s get out of here.”

“Not just another pretty face. She’s smart, too.”

“Stuff that.” Heris headed uphill, toward sounds of agitation that must be Vali’s fault.

This time she sensed a change as she neared Lila because she was feeling for it. Lila said, “There’s another tunnel here, sealed the same as the entrance up top. We didn’t notice because it’s on the side and we were in a hurry. Triple Great. Get behind Aunt Heris.” She made a simple gesture after he moved.

This door opened as though on hinges, folding out from its downhill edge, to exactly block the tunnel. There was a click! when it reached a right angle. Solid stone seemed to close the way. Heris wondered if giants coming up would see a similar wall from the other side.

This side felt like rock to the touch. It was rough and cold and growing damp.

Hourlr entered the new tunnel, which ran level and curved to the right. The Instrumentality moved carefully, assessing his surroundings. Heris suspected that he was embarrassed about having a mere mortal girl find what a god had missed.

She hoped that made Lila less interesting.

After ninety degrees of curvature the side tunnel came to another barrier of planks. It was raining on the other side here, too. Heris snarled, “We’re back where we were before.”

Lila disagreed. “There aren’t any giants.”

Hourlr nodded, then slid aside for Cloven Februaren, avoiding contact as though the old man had sprouted cactus spines. He did contrive to brush against Heris, though. She jumped and squeaked. His touch was a sharp shock, not what she expected and not at all exciting.

Februaren peered between planks, grunted twice, once puzzled, once surprised. “This comes out the same place as the gateway in the barge in the Realm of the Gods.”

Heris grumbled, “How can that be?”

Hourlr’s face collapsed into an expression that defined frown. “Aelen Kofer magic,” he muttered, withdrawing inward.

The Ninth Unknown kept thumping the planks. “What are you doing?” Heris demanded.

“Trying to break the latch. It’s a gate. Latched over there because there isn’t anybody on this side who needs to get back.”

A plank gave way. The old man shoved a hand through the gap. Heris demanded, “Do you want to get their attention?”

“Not a problem. They don’t post a guard. You want them underfoot, you have to summon them.” He pulled on something. The plank construct swung away. Cool, damp air rushed into the tunnel. “Interesting, though, that different pathways go to the same place.”

Lila said, “You don’t know that. You know that the two we’ve found go there.”

The old man grumbled but did not argue. She had a point. A scary point, Heris feared.

She had no trouble seeing Iron Eyes make it work that way. The dwarfs had to walk to wherever they wanted to open a gateway home but maybe once they did that they could connect to a central point so no more walking need ever be done.

She asked, “Double Great, can we walk the Construct in and out of there once we’ve been there?”

“Interesting question. Let’s find out. It didn’t work for the Realm of the Gods, though.” He glanced at Hourlr.

The Shining One had no opinion. He focused on the rainy world. Heris thought he was nervous, maybe even afraid.

Februaren said, “Don’t anyone go through before I fix it so we can see the gate from the other side.”

Heris recalled him describing how he had done that before. The gateway would have disappeared if he had not left it plainly marked.

“First thing, then, let’s jam it open.”

Hourlr told Heris, “We should not do this.”

“You don’t want to get home?”

“They will be aware of us as soon as I step through.”

“Then don’t do no stepping. Duh!”

The old man had the plank gate open. Heris saw the damp meadow clearly and could just make out standing stones in the distance. She saw drag marks in the grass. The Aelen Kofer had brought something heavy through here.

The Ninth Unknown said, “Lila, loan me your duster thing. It will stand out against the green.”

Lila’s outerwear fit no category clearly. It was too long to be a shirt, too light to be a jacket, wide like a serape but not hooded like a poncho. She had created it herself, for travel. It was yellow and red. It was not comfortable in the heat of the middle world but it beat the chill down here.

“I don’t think so. It’ll get all wet.”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

“Have the devil make a magic beacon.”

“That would work,” Hourlr admitted. “And, again, it would alert the Aelen Kofer.”

Heris asked, “Is there any reason to go out at all?” She cringed as her companions glared.

In a flat, controlled voice Lila reminded, “This expedition was your idea, Auntie.”

Her initial reasoning seemed strained. She did want to reach Eucereme and the Instrumentalities there, but …

She was no longer sure what she hoped to accomplish. She talked about helping Piper but that would not withstand logical scrutiny. Piper had help.

Piper was at war with the Night only when the Night got in his way. She, though, was at war with the Night directly. She had become the Godslayer. She had exterminated the oldest and hardest generation. Now she would … what? End the Tyranny of the Night?

Hourlr shifted uncomfortably.

No. She was not at war with his generation. Not with his kin and kind. Absent Ordnan, Red Hammer, Zyr, and the Trickster, the Old Ones were, generally, rather decent.

Cloven Februaren gave up fingering Lila’s cloak thing. “Guess I won’t need this if you just stay standing in the doorway.” He stepped into the drizzle, which was more a falling mist, now. “They had a watch set after all.”

Heris saw squat, wide shapes between her and the standing stones. She recognized Korban Iron Eyes right away.