“Kharoulke the Windwalker is awake and free. The middle world is going under the ice. The Aelen Kofer are required.”
The ancient looked like somebody was beating him with an invisible shovel.
“Others like the Windwalker are wakening, too. There is no power to keep them bound.”
“Stop!”
One word, so heavily accented Februaren almost failed to grasp it.
“Do not… speak… again.”
The Ninth Unknown waited, feeling the world around him.
The realm of the dwarves was thick with magic, the way the middle world had been in antiquity. Its wells of power must be boiling, flooding it with magical steam. Yet the power of the dwarf world was slightly different. Februaren clawed at it but it slipped through his sorcerer’s grasp like quicksilver between cold, stiff fingers.
“Son of Man. You stand before Korban Iron Eyes.”
Februaren heard the “Iron Eyes.” It took him a moment to connect that with Khor-ben Jarneyn Gjoresson, the son of the dwarf king in the commoner northern myth cycles. He was supposed to have made several magical rings and swords and hammers for various gods and heroes.
Februaren stifled an urge to tell Iron Eyes that while he was older than expected, he did not look his age. His sense of humor was moribund lately.
“Cloven Februaren, Ninth Unknown of the Collegium, in Brothe. The Aelen Kofer are required.”
The dwarf grunted. He wanted time to think.
Februaren felt a rising dread. This would not go quickly. Dwarves were not immortal but their lives did stretch back to the dawn of memory. They knew no urgency. He glanced back. The doorway remained visible. The world continued to gain color, maybe as his eyes adapted.
Korban Iron Eyes turned to the standing stone. He talked to it as, slowly, he rested his palms on a dozen runes in succession, naming them in turn.
Reality quake. Silent thunder. A moment when the lightning of all darkness met. And a moment beyond when the old men of the Aelen Kofer joined their Crown Prince. Including the ancient Gjore himself. Nobody spoke. Everybody stared at the outsider.
These were the pride and glory of the Aelen Kofer?
The tribe was in bad shape. Maybe as bad as the Realm of the Gods.
The Old Ones must have taken steps to make sure they would not go down alone.
The dwarves talked among themselves. Februaren heard the Windwalker mentioned several times.
Iron Eyes faced him. “Son of Man. You say the Aelen Kofer are required. Divulge the full truth if you hope to see your arrogance overlooked. What do you want? What do you mean to do? How did you find your way into our world?”
Februaren told it. Without lying. Without overlooking much. Without admitting how powerful he was in the middle world. The Aelen Kofer of myth had a mystical horn that trumpeted whenever it heard a lie. No horn was on display. But it would be around somewhere.
The Aelen Kofer began to debate.
Language was no mask for the dispute. There were two points of view. Which seemed to verge on turning deadly.
One side wanted to go right on doing nothing. The Realm of the Gods meant nothing to the Aelen Kofer. Let the Windwalker have his way with the middle world. Let both worlds die if that was their destiny. The fates of men-and of trapped mer-did not concern the Aelen Kofer.
The opposition held that the dwarf world had begun to grow pale. It was dying, in its own way. And, the fate of the world aside, Kharoulke the Windwalker was the most vile, hideous, ancient, and implacable enemy of the Aelen Kofer. Whose cleverness had been enough to imprison him in the long ago. In time, come for the Aelen Kofer he would. In time, make himself Lord of the Nine Worlds he would. Unless someone stopped him.
Februaren’s ears pricked up. Nine Worlds? That exceeded the census of myth by several. And, how the devil was he following all the argument? Till minutes ago he had never heard a word of dwarfish spoken.
Magic.
One man in ten thousand would not just say, “Magic,” shrug, and walk away. The one guy, a Ninth Unknown, would begin fussing about it immediately, driven to find out how it worked and why.
The debate raged. The dwarf elders remained balanced precariously on the cusp of violence. Cloven Februaren thought about what could go wrong. He recalled what he knew from the Aelen Kofer myth cycle.
“Oh-oh.”
He was in a typical story. And a story of this kind-not just in the northern tradition-tended to launch its hero onto a whole ladder of quests. If that pattern held the dwarves would agree to help but only if he went to the land of the giants to steal something only a Son of Man could carry away. But before he could do that he would have to pilfer something from the world of the elves so he could unlock the way. And whatever that was could be handled only by someone who had been thrown down into the icy wastes of Hell… And once he got home they would wed him to the King’s daughter and the old monarch would abdicate in his favor.
Something to look forward to. If he lived that long.
The inaction party had a good argument. Saving the world was too much work.
Iron Eyes announced, “It’s been decided. A compromise has been reached. Those who think the Aelen Kofer ought to respond to your petition are free to do so. Word is spreading. Those who aren’t interested will stay behind and forget you ever crept into our world. The rest will join you in the Realm of the Gods.”
Iron Eyes did not bring up a need for a talisman from the Land Beyond the Dawn. Februaren chose not to raise the question. Iron Eyes said, “Organization of the expedition has begun.”
“Excellent. Meanwhile, any chance I could get something to eat?” It had been a while. The kraken was no longer coming back. And he had harped on the hunger all through the telling of his tale.
“Of course.”
Iron Eyes touched the standing stone in a pattern of pats and whistles. He vanished, leaving a pop! and a tuft of beard drifting toward badly trampled grass. Cloven Februaren moved nearer the menhir. It must have something in common with the Construct.
Dwarves began to reappear, attired and equipped for war. Fighters were not what Februaren had come to get. He needed magical engineers. Masters of their trade. Not breakers of bone and stone.
Well, maybe they did come equipped with mystic tools. Hard to tell. Each had loaded himself down with a pack bigger than he was.
Should he despair? These dwarves were the oldest of the old. The grayest and hairiest of the extremely hairy and gray.
Iron Eyes came back armed with two packs. The puny one he handed to Februaren. “For you.”
The mass bent the old man to the ground. “You did hear me when I said I’ve been around over two hundred years?”
“Barely out of nappies.”
“That’s extremely old, for a man. Since age has come up, why are only the grandfathers volunteering?”
“They’re the Aelen Kofer who believe there’s a problem. They remember the Windwalker and his brothers. The youngsters think the old folks exaggerate. They do about everything else. Times always used to be harder. In any case, some think that the Windwalker was cruelly done. We didn’t try hard enough to talk out our differences before we resorted to violence.”
Cloven Februaren touched his chin to make sure his jaw had not gone slack. The Aelen Kofer were nearly immortal. How could a rational being who had survived more than two decades possibly think that way? Kharoulke’s idea of a peace conference would be to eat the delegates the other side sent. By offering to negotiate you announced that you had already accepted the probability of defeat. You wanted to weasel out of the worst consequences.
With Instrumentalities like the Windwalker there was nothing to discuss. He offered victory or extinction. The Night saw no in-between.
“Don’t be shocked, Son of Man. Your tribe doesn’t have an exclusive claim to the production of fools.” Iron Eyes changed subject. “This adventure will be hard. We have to make the walk between worlds by actually walking. No eight-legged horses. No changing into hawks or eagles. There isn’t power enough left for any of that. Tell you
