truly, Son of Man, I’m surprised that the Realm of the Gods has survived as well and long as you say. It ought to be farther down the path to extinction.” At the end, there, the dwarf seemed bitten by a sudden, dark suspicion.
“Time is wasting,” Februaren said. He started downhill toward the shadowy uncertainty of a doorway.
The climb out of the ship was not that long, intellectually. Physically, it was a harsh challenge for Cloven Februaren, weak and unaccustomed to labor. He felt every one of his years when he collapsed on the main deck of the barge.
Some Aelen Kofer were equally drained by carrying all that weight. The more spry went to the rails and called to the mer. Much of what they had dragged up the long climb was food.
Iron Eyes said the mer would have to find the seams outlining the gateway to the middle world. The Aelen Kofer could not.
The people of the sea showed little interest. Having eaten, they began to display a certain animus. Understandably.
Februaren reminded them that the Aelen Kofer were not obligated to feed them again. And recruiting the dwarves had been their idea. They had to help save themselves.
The mer then declared their unwillingness to stray from areas they considered safe. The slain kraken was not the last of its kind. There was a white shark out there, too. It had produced pups not long ago. Those, most likely, had been eaten by something.
All smaller forms of life, barring things able to burrow deep into the bottom mud, had been hunted out. Nothing remained but the top predators, eyeballing one another, desperate for an opportunity.
There were six people of the sea. Four males, in their prime before becoming trapped, the female who had shape-changed, and a fiercely protected female child. Had she been human Februaren would have guessed her to be four.
Korban Jarneyn said, “There is little magic left. We need to be niggardly with it. Opening the gateway will bankrupt us.”
“How large a hole do you need? My associate on the outside can get through a rat hole if he has to.”
“The bigger the opening the more outside magic we can pull in.”
The Aelen Kofer hoped to catch the tail end of the burst of power in the Andorayan Sea. None, Februaren noted, suggested drawing on the more accessible magic of their own world.
“Will a small hole let you draw power to make a big hole?”
“If we find the seams so we can force any hole at all.” Iron Eyes glared at the timid mer. He looked up the mountain. Its peak lay hidden in clouds. Most of the Aelen Kofer had gone to study the rainbow bridge.
Februaren said, “Make the way safe for the mer. Even if that leaves only power enough to force a finger-size hole.”
Iron Eyes scowled. He muttered. He bobbed his head once, fiercely. “The alternative is defeat without having fought.”
And that, of course, was not to be endured. The fight was the thing. To battle without hope, yet battle on and battle well. Thither loomed immortality.
Korban collected a half-dozen dwarves. They formed a circle facing inward-excepting Gjoresson himself. He faced the harbor.
The mer made frightened noises. They crowded into the tight space between the barge and the quayside. They wept, sure something would winkle them out.
A shark’s fin broke water a hundred yards out. It headed straight at the dwarves.
Something brought mud boiling to the surface beside the quay. Tentacles followed. Cloven Februaren slashed one reaching for the Aelen Kofer. That fixed the kraken’s attention on him.
The Aelen Kofer were teasing the desperate hunger of the monsters of the harbor.
The kraken got no chance to taste the Ninth Unknown.
The shark arrived. The quay shook to its strike. Then another kraken materialized, rising into the death struggle.
Satisfied, the Aelen Kofer broke their circle.
“Better than any dogfight,” Gjoresson observed. “Son of Man, ask the mer if there are any more monsters out there.”
The answer was, there were no more known dangers.
The shark tore the first kraken apart. But the second got hold of the shark and hung on, out of the reach of lethal jaws. Its beak was sharp enough to slice through shark skin. Shark blood and kraken ichors filled the water.
Februaren remarked, “If there’s anything else out there that will bring it.”
Iron Eyes lamented, “Those krakens are as intelligent as us. But their minds are more alien than you can imagine. They were created by the Trickster. Accidentally. It’s a long nightmare of a story about giants and incest and revenge gone awry. The krakens hate the Old Ones, the more fervently because they could never do anything about it.”
“Uh…”
“They hate the Sons of Men almost as much. The mother of them all was a mortal fathered by the Trickster. These are the last of them. Unless some escaped to the middle world when the way was still open.”
The krakens out there were far bigger than these. These could not pull down anything larger than a coracle.
“The closing ought to put the Aelen Kofer on their list, too.”
“Oh, right at the top. Yes.”
Februaren muttered, “With the Night all evils are possible and most are probably true.”
The shark rolled, thrashed, then sounded. And that was that for several minutes. Then the killer fish broached so violently that for a moment it was entirely free of the water. It rolled, came down with the kraken between it and the water. Stunned, the kraken lost its grip.
“There’s the end, then,” Iron Eyes said. “The shark will finish the kraken, then bleed to death.” He gestured to his companions.
The dwarves boarded the ship, took in the rotten mooring lines. The mer protested vigorously. The combat continued out in the harbor. The kraken had to get back on and hang on if it hoped to live. It could not run to safety.
The dwarves found oars somewhere. Gjoresson explained, “The Aelen Kofer built this barge. Employing our finest arts. There’s more to it than what you see. Though you should have seen it when it was new and the magic was everywhere. It needed only to be told what sort of vessel to be and where to go. It didn’t have to be rowed.”
In its final throes the shark smashed into the side of the ship, breaking oars and leaving a hole at the waterline. The oars could be replaced. Februaren and Korban went below to get a patch on the breach.
The shark stopped thrashing. Two of the mer found the courage to look for the portal to the middle world. Which took only a few minutes to find. The problem became locating a good place to break through.
By then Februaren and Iron Eyes had been replaced at the breach by dwarves no longer needed at the oars. Gjoresson was in continuous conversation with the mer. Once, as an aside, he told the Ninth Unknown, “I see the outlines, now. But no weak spots. We did good work in the old days.”
Old days? That was just a few years ago.
“We’ll go for the best opening we can force and hope there’s magic enough to do.” Iron Eyes grinned behind his beard. “And if we fail, you can settle down with us back in our world. I have a grandniece who would find a human wizard endlessly fascinating.”
“If need be.” But he didn’t want to entertain that bleak a future. Instead, he began contemplating a possible alternate method of attack.
The world of the dwarves, in story, had its own connections with the middle world. Maybe the ascendant could be brought to the Realm of the Gods the long way round.
How would Korban Jarneyn respond to that suggestion? Maybe his grandniece would like to play with a newly minted Instrumentality.
Februaren glanced across the harbor. The dwarves from the mountain had returned to the quay. They did not
