“Find Arlensul’s whelp, sorcerer. Or the course is run. That thing out there, that horrible toad in the mist, will drive the ice this far before spring. If ever it does return. Unless you…”
Red-gold light flared in the mist, far away. A second flash followed, shorter, brighter, and more yellow. Then a dozen more flashes, in varying shades, followed quickly, creeping from right to left.
“What would that be?” Gjoresson mused.
The Ninth Unknown had a sudden, sobering thought. “Can you close the gateway? Quickly?”
“After all this time prizing it open an inch at a time?”
“We’re going to get deadly wet if you can’t at least make the hole a lot smaller.”
The dwarf heard his urgency. “All right. I trust you to worry about your own skin.”
Februaren explained while Iron Eyes worked at whatever Aelen Kofer did when they tinkered with magic. It was not dramatic. Nor ever was, till it was over and there stood something like the rainbow bridge. Iron Eyes did not understand the Ninth Unknown’s explanation.
The gateway’s diameter had shrunk ten feet before the first dull, protracted, barely audible crump arrived, forerunner of a series of thumps, cracks, and crunches that whispered about very big noises having been birthed a long way away, across cruelly cold water.
The bellow of an outraged god soon followed. It had so much anger behind it, it might be heard for a thousand miles.
The Ninth Unknown’s mood improved dramatically. “She did it! She did pull it off! I was right. He had no one guarding his back.” But fear returned as he recalled the certain consequences of success.
“We’ve got to close the gateway.”
“Who just did what, sorcerer?” Iron Eyes demanded.
“Get the gateway shrunk down as small as you can without leaving us locked up here.”
The ascendant arrived at a trot, moving fast for the first time in months. “Best do as he says, Gjoresson.”
The dwarf wanted to bicker but sensed that wasting time might prove uncomfortable shortly. This was not a moment for reasoned, deliberate, parliamentary discussion.
Februaren was not unreasonable. He tried to explain again while Iron Eyes worked. The dwarf just did not understand.
Another divine racket arose, a staccato salvo of screams that got Februaren to imagine a hundred elephants being slowly roasted alive.
The ascendant asked, “What was all that?”
“The Windwalker taking an involuntary, full emersion dip in the Andorayan Sea. Keep shrinking the gateway, Iron Eyes. The wave is coming. I promise. In fact, the rest of us ought to be headed for higher ground.” He told the crowd of dwarves, “Shoo! All of you! Find someplace high. Run! Argue after I turn out to be an idiot.”
Iron Eyes reduced the gateway to ten feet wide and five high before the wave arrived. That was taller and wider than the opening. Water exploded through the gap. It shattered the Seatt escape boat, pounded the barge, and sank the smack belonging to the striped killers. But it did not have energy enough to drive on inland.
“Let us celebrate our wet feet,” Cloven Februaren declared. “And then let’s get to work.”
The water had subsided. The gateway had started growing again. The harbor was a plain of jade glass. The sea outside was calm, clad in its bleak winter colors.
The screams of the Windwalker continued. Februaren pictured the god clawing his way along the foot of the ice cliffs, looking for somewhere to drag himself out of the torturing water. “Sounds like he’s having serious problems.”
Gjoresson said, “The sea is eating at him like a weak acid. It will devour him completely. If he can’t get out. Though that could take years. There’s a lot of him. And the water is freezing. If it was hot it would eat him up a lot faster. Still, he’s in so much pain he can’t concentrate enough to use his divine power. So, for now, he’s just a big, stupid brute wracked by agony.”
The Ninth Unknown and the ascendant were pleased. The longer Kharoulke remained immersed the weaker he would be once he escaped the water.
Februaren said, “I bought time. Now give me one of Kharoulke’s bully beasts and take me outside the gateway.”
Hours passed. The barge needed repairs. Eventually, the Aelen Kofer took it out into the Andorayan Sea. They went only a hundred yards beyond the opening. They crowded the decks, soaking up the rich magic of the middle world.
Februaren had two of Kharoulke’s artifacts. He would not need to return for a replacement if one died. He worried that he might be doing the wrong thing.
The ascendant and a dozen Aelen Kofer were watching. Everyone would pay devoted attention to whatever he did now.
No help for it.
He pulled his prisoners in close, thought of a particular place, made his sideways turn.
He stepped into a grove in Friesland. Heris was waiting. She had a fire burning. No need to fear discovery. The people had gone away. The Instrumentalities, great and small, had run off toward the waning power in the Andorayan Sea. She said, “Let’s go home. I need to get warmed up. Then I need to check on Piper.”
He made sure of the constraints on his cargo. “What took so long with those explosions?”
“I had to make sure Piper settled in safely. What the hell are those things? If they were any uglier we’d have to kill them to put them out of their misery. Why are they tied up like that?” And, “You need a rest. You look awful.”
Februaren knew of no reason why he should appear unusual. He snapped, “Tell me!”
“Your plan called for me to set off firepowder in a dozen different places. I did fourteen. But you gave me no help coming up with the firepowder. I had to deal with that on top of wet-nursing Piper.”
“You should’ve taken it all from him.”
“He watches his. So. I had to raid eight different armories, five of which I had to find for myself. So don’t get snippy. I do know where I can swipe a couple more that I could set off under your cranky ass.” She glared, daring him to say something.
“All right. All right. The job got done. Big Ugly God got dumped in the drink. And he’s in too much pain to do big ugly god stuff. We’ve bought time.”
“Thank you, Heris.”
“Thank you, Heris.”
“All right. Now. What the hell are these things, all bundled up in ropes and blankets and stuff?”
Februaren explained. Then, “If you take one and I take the other, we can get home in a couple of skips.”
“They really stink, don’t they?”
“They do. They’re dying. Kharoulke is too busy saving his own scary butt to keep them topped up.”
“Then we shouldn’t waste time swapping tall tales.”
Februaren indulged in a small smile as he seized an artifact and turned sideways. The woman had shown dramatic growth over the past two years. Maybe, just possibly, she could be primed to assume the calling that Piper could not.
Muno was no pup anymore.
The Ninth Unknown took one of his captives into the heart of the Construct and tested it to destruction. When he took the healthier one in he knew enough to mine the communal memories of the Krepnights, the Elect, who were all the same beast.
Jarneyn Gjoresson jumped into the air, literally. Februaren said, “Sorry. I’ve never seen a startle response that dramatic.”
The dwarf scowled more fiercely than usual. He growled, “You have something to report?”
“I’ve found a place to look for the Bastard. It was in the group memory of the monster. One of the first accompanied a band of Chosen raiders into the wilds of the Empire. They were supposed to kill a particular man who could be found at a particular rustic fortress. The Windwalker gave no reason. But there was a sense that
