Surrender to the will of the night

16. Other Worlds

There was no night in the Realm of the Gods. The Ninth Unknown assumed that there must have been, once. The Aelen Kofer must have taken the diurnal and seasonal cycles with them, leaving only a changeless silvery gray sameness.

How long had he been there? There were no temporal milestones. Not even the sonic rhythm of the world changed. Hunger only worked till the food ran out. Bowel movements became erratic before that. His digestion did not tolerate traveler’s iron rations well.

For a time he had concentrated on reaching the Great Sky Fortress without having to walk the broken rainbow bridge. A young warrior, a hardened commando type, might have climbed that sheer gray stone. If there were no traps and no hazards less obvious than those Februaren saw from points he could reach riding his own weary flesh.

He had to admit he was a bit past his prime.

Maybe the ascendant could make the climb without using the bridge. He could change into something built for that. But the ascendant was not here to help.

Februaren had not yet gotten a ghost of a hint of a means of opening the way between the worlds. Nor of escaping himself. No good trying to call on the Construct, either. From inside the Realm of the Gods there was no sign that great growing engine existed.

He had dropped himself into a room without doors.

He was not powerless. If anything, his sorcerer’s abilities were enhanced. But they were no help, except insofar as he could charm his stomach into believing that it had not gone out of business.

Despair did not defeat him. There was that of the “northern thing” in his character. No surrender. Battle on till the Choosers of the Slain arrived. Or whichever deathlord followed on after the Gray One’s beautiful daughters.

He prowled the dwarf town till he knew it like he had been born there. He found nothing of value or interest. The Aelen Kofer would have taken the wood and mortar and stone had they not been loaded down with night and the seasons.

They had that reputation in myth and legend.

Must be a lot of truth in the old tales. Februaren had yet to uncover a contradiction to the little he knew of the Old Ones.

But in the Night everything was true.

In time spells no longer silenced his hunger. Soon he would stop thinking logically and linearly. Something dramatic needed doing.

In desperation he fashioned crude fishing apparatus. Something lived out there in the oily gray water of the harbor. The surface often stirred to movements underneath. He had no bait. He would have devoured that long since had he been able to find anything. He made a shiny lure and stained it with his blood, then went down to quayside. He boarded the derelict tied up there, began fishing off its bow. He hoped he was a better fisherman than hunter.

He had enjoyed no luck trying to catch the few rats, squirrels, other vermin, and birds still inhabiting the Realm of the Gods. As desperately hungry as he, they were the fiercest survivors of their species, too fast for an old man not used to hard work. He thought they might be hunting him.

Not even sorcery availed him. These creatures were indifferent. Maybe they were immune, simply by always having lived inside the supernatural.

He expected no better luck with the denizens of the harbor. But in just minutes he felt a tug on his line so determined it was clear something down there was fishing for dinner, too. Februaren pulled. The thing pulled. The old man had more success. He glimpsed something like a miniature kraken. A squid. He had eaten squid all his life. Squid was popular throughout Firaldia. Too bad he had no olive oil or garlic.

This squid was miniature only by comparison to the krakens of nautical legend. It outweighed the Ninth Unknown. And had the reach on him, too. Its long tentacles were a dozen feet in length. It failed to take Februaren only because the old man had the better leverage.

The monster would not give up.

The Ninth Unknown was just as stubborn.

Tentacles slithered up over the edge of the quay. The monster began to lift itself out of the water. It turned, tried to reach over the rail of the hulk. Its eyes…

Startled, Februaren stared down at a face almost human, contorted in desperate effort. Those eyes were intelligent but mad with hunger.

It let go the quayside, hoping to topple Februaren with its weight. He did stumble but not enough to go over the rail. Just enough to see the tentacles reaching. Enough to see the water suddenly churn and give up three heads that looked almost human. Shoulders and torsos and weapons followed. Short harpoons in manlike hands plunged into the monster’s unguarded back.

Februaren surrendered his fishing gear. It was time. Time to get off the hulk, too. He watched the struggle as he went. The people of the sea were gaunt with starvation. They were weak. Though they were three and the monster one he knew they would get the worst of this. The kraken would feed.

He employed his last resources once he reached the quay, hitting the monster with a spell meant to paralyze. The spell would immobilize a human for hours. This kraken was not human. But its struggles did turn sluggish.

Februaren collapsed.

He went down with enough reason left to make sure he kept stumbling away from the water as he did.

Someone was singing. The voice was remote and eerie and the words were alien but the melody was familiar. It went with a love song sung first in the dialect of the western Connec a hundred years ago. Cloven Februaren recalled making love to the refrain out of the Khaurenesaine.

He smelled a powerfully fishy stench.

He lay where he had fallen, right cheek hard against cold, damp stone, palms burning from abrasions. He cracked the eyelid nearest the pavements. What he saw so startled him that he gave himself away.

Five feet away, seated cross-legged, facing him, was a young woman, singing while she worked. She wore nothing that had not been on her at the moment of her birth.

Had he the strength he would have turned away. She might be without modesty but he had his, even after all these years. But he was too weak to do more than flop and make noises even he did not understand.

The song faded into gurgling laughter.

The mer got onto her knees. Putting those together. She extended a hand with something in it. The fishy stench grew more powerful. “Eat!”

After struggling into a seated position, Februaren could see what the mer had been doing. Carving flesh from a tentacle.

He was much too hungry to worry about what that flesh used to be. Or how badly it smelled now.

His stomach would soon rebel. But sufficient to that moment the evil. He seized the food.

The girl said, “I have… been sent out… to watch. Our debt. Your spell saved… many lives.” Clearly, she was not accustomed to speaking a human language. But she did warm up quickly.

The little Cloven Februaren knew about the people of the sea he had learned from books. They could change shape and walk among men but only for a short while. Only in extraordinary circumstances would they put themselves through the pain necessary to gain legs. The change, in this case, had been perfectly mimetic. And the mer had deliberately revealed that.

She cautioned, “You don’t eat too much. Small bites. Chew, long times. Or get sick. When you get stronger, make fire. Cook.”

She spoke a dialect of the northern Grail Empire. One he had known well as a youth but had not heard in a century. He gestured at her to keep it slow. He took her advice and ate slowly, too.

She stopped needing thought pauses between words and phrases but never spoke at a conversational pace. “You are not the only sorcerer. But you are the one who had the right spell.”

The raw kraken lost its savor. Februaren supposed that was his own body telling him to stop eating. So he tried to concentrate on the girl. Without having his gaze drift downward.

She was admirably equipped, there, just a hand below her chin.

He supposed her capacity to distract was why she had been chosen to speak for the mer.

“You may think we fed you in gratitude for your help. In less desperate times that would be true. We are a peaceful, hospitable people. But that luxury has been taken from the mer who are trapped here. We feed you, instead, by way of investing in our own survival. You have legs. You can make the journey even the greatest hero of the mer could not endure.” To his frown she replied, “I cannot go far from the water. I have to return to the wet frequently. Please. Tell your story.”

Little splashes behind Februaren told him he had an audience broader than a single shape-changed girl.

He told ninety percent of the truth. And no deliberate lies.

The girl said, “We are after the same thing. The opening of the way. Otherwise, we all die. And the world of men will follow. Unless…”

“Yes? Unless?”

“We are at the mercy of the Aelen Kofer. Only the Aelen Kofer can open the way. Only the Aelen Kofer have the skills to rebuild the rainbow bridge. Only the Aelen Kofer can save the Tba Mer. And…”

The girl wanted him to ask. “And?”

“Only you can go where the Aelen Kofer have gone. Only you have legs to survive the dry journey. Only your human lips can shape the magical word that will compel the Aelen Kofer to hear your appeal.”

“Magic word? What magic word?” A swift riffle through his recollections of north myth exhumed nothing. “Rumplestiltskin?”

“No! Invoke the name of the one whose name we dare not speak. The one you named in your tale.”

“All right.” He would have to think about that. It must be Ordnan, whose name was not to be spoken though everyone knew it somehow. But the Gray Walker was gone. Named or unnamed, he had no power anymore. How could an extinct god compel the Aelen Kofer? “But I can’t make any journey if I’m sealed up inside here.”

“Only the middle world, your world and mine, is denied us. The Aelen Kofer went down into their own realm.”

“Down? I thought they sailed away aboard the golden barge of the gods.”

“No. The barge is right behind you. You were on it. It is involved, but the dwarves went down. Back to the world whence the Old Ones summoned them in the great dawn of their power. Back when they were the New Gods and the Golden Ones.”

The girl stopped talking. The old man was pleased. He had time to do more than labor after what she was trying to say.

She was patient. As were the mer in the water behind Februaren.

“I don’t know the stories of this world as good as I should. How does one move from this world to that of the dwarves?”

The answer was absurd on its face. And explained why someone might think the Aelen Kofer had gone away on a barge.

His acquaintance with religion suggested that most were founded on logical absurdities easily discerned from outside. And yet, each was true, courtesy of the Night. Somewhere. At some time. At least part of the time.

A dozen Instrumentalities of the grand, bizarre old sort had shown their resurrected selves of late. He had come here seeking help dealing with the worst of the breed.

He could almost feel the bitter cold breath of the Windwalker.

Absurd. But real. Februaren boarded the rotting ship again. Gingerly, afraid the decay might be so advanced that ladders would collapse under his negligible weight. But time had not advanced to meet his dread.

The ship was not large. It was low in the waist, rising only a few feet higher than the quay. Februaren doubted that it drew a dozen feet heavily loaded. The main weather deck was six feet above the waterline. The tub was short and wide and indifferent, like one of his earliest wives. It did not resent his presence enough to react. Magic ship or not.

This ship was not the same size inside as out. Which was no stunner to the Ninth Unknown. Space needed only to conform to the Will of the Night.

The only deck below the main weather deck was the bottom of the cargo hold, loose planking on cross frame members, concealing the ballast voids, bilges, and keel. Half the ship was nothing but a big, empty box that stank because it had not been pumped clean in far too long.

The hold could be examined from above simply by moving a hatch cover. It appeared to be accessible-safely-only through the bows or stern castle. Februaren had instructions to go down. The mer had told him to use the stern route, past the master’s cabin.

The master’s quarters were on the main deck level, behind a pathetic galley. Februaren ransacked that, found nothing more useful than several rusty knives and an ebony marlinspike that had to be a memento. It was too heavy to be a practical tool.

Done there, Februaren descended a steep stairs. Seamen would call it a ladder. The deck below constituted quarters for two or three officers, so low even a short man had to bend to get around. How much worse for the seamen up forward? Had they even had room to sling hammocks?

Had there, in fact, ever been an actual crew? Did the gods need one?

Light leaked in from above and through skinny gaps in the hull. It revealed little of interest. A fine deposit of dust. Webs whose spiders had been hunted out long ago by rats and mice who had since abandoned ship.

He had been told to keep going down. He descended to another cramped deck where food and ship’s stores might have been kept. Then down again, and again. Counting steps, he was fifteen feet below the ship’s bottom when he ran out of ladders. There was no less light here than there had been up above. The tired old light leaked in, around, and through cracks in a crude plank door. Which, in theory, ought to open on the cargo bay but could not possibly because it had to be beneath the bottom of the harbor.

The rotten latchstring broke when he pulled it. Why had it been left out? Had someone been left behind? Or did it just not matter?

He slipped the blade of the thinnest knife through a crack and lifted the latch. Which proved to be a wooden strip so slight it would have broken if he had just pushed the door hard.

“Hatch,” he reminded himself as he eased through, cautiously. Sailors called their doors hatches.

What lay beyond the hatchway was no ship’s hold. It was a mountain meadow in summer, without the direct sunshine. Lightly wooded hills rose to either hand. Mountains more fierce than the Jagos loomed beyond, all around. Mountains all dark indigo gray, most with white on the tips of their teeth.

Cloven Februaren stopped halfway through the hatchway, saw what was to be seen, withdrew. He swung the rickety door open as far as it would go, used one of the plundered knives to jam it so it could not swing shut. He collected a loose plank from those covering the bilges, laid it down so a quarter of its length protruded into the world of the dwarves. Only then did he step on through.

He removed his pack, extracted his spare shirt, fixed it to the plank end by hammering in another liberated knife. The shirt hung there like what it was, a rumpled, dirty yellow rag. Attached to a board protruding from a blot of darkness the eye could not fix and could not have found again without knowing the correct magic-had he allowed the hatch to close.

He found nothing better than a few stones so tossed those through to strengthen the connection between worlds. Then he walked slowly uphill toward a standing stone on sentry duty a hundred yards away.

With each step a little of the gray around him went away. A wash of pale color entered the world. It waxed but never became homeworld strong. It was a pastel world when the old man stopped in front of the standing stone.

The menhir was covered with dwarfish runes. The gods had borrowed them, then gave them to the children of men so they could record their prayers. Cloven Februaren stared at three runes inked onto his left palm, then found a matching sequence on the face of the stone. He traced each of the three with his right forefinger as he spoke the names of the runes. He was careful with his pronunciations.

The air shimmered. It shuddered and pushed against the Ninth Unknown. It twisted. Then the space between him and the stone filled with an old, hairy, bewildered Aelen Kofer who rubbed his eyes and squinted, rubbed his eyes and squinted. He did not want to believe what he saw.

Februaren said, “The Aelen Kofer are required.” He used the tongue he shared with the mer. He had been assured that the dwarves would understand.

If his recollections of the mythology were correct, the Aelen Kofer would understand him whatever tongue he used.

The dwarf gulped air behind his beard. Doubtless, that had sprouted before the first men turned sticks into tools. He rasped, “Son of Man!” and made it sound like the worst swearing he could imagine.

“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 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 appear to be filled with good cheer.

Gjoresson stayed focused on the gateway. He gathered his companions, muttered with them, then the lot put together something indistinct. They pointed it at the portal, right where it met the dead water.

A spot of ruby fire came to life.

Februaren stared. The bounds of the world could not be discerned by his eye. Harbor and sky seemed to roll right on. Yet ripples caused by the barge made little splashes against something right where the dot shone. Seabirds wheeled in the distance, fishing, but never came close. Clearly, they could not see the barge or harbor.

The dwarves broke up. Most went to the oars. The barge wobbled back to the quay. Iron Eyes said, “I need more help. Particularly from those who closed the way, back when.”

Curious. Gjoresson kept talking like those events had taken place in the remote past.

The barge hugged quayside just long enough for the other Aelen Kofer to board. Dwarves were a dour tribe but this klatch were unusually taciturn and grim. A few muttered with Iron Eyes while the barge crossed the harbor. Finally, Korban told Februaren, “The bridge can be restored. We haven’t lost the secrets of building with rainbows. But it will take time and require a lot of magic. Which we don’t have. We’ll have to bring it from the middle world. But, granting that we get the bridge restored, freeing the Old Ones may still be impossible.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the entangled sorceries sealing them in were written so that only one of the Old Ones, or one of their blood, will be able to thread a passage through the magical closure. Your soultaken must be a genius. How could he know? Did he know? He did better imprisoning them than they did imprisoning the wicked gods they overthrew. No one has to stay here to keep these spells working. I’m in awe.”

And more than a little dishonest, Februaren reflected.

Iron Eyes said, “Unless the soultaken himself gives us a tool, there may be no hope. Those who could open the way are all inside. Even the Trickster, which amazes me. He was always too clever to get caught.”

Februaren considered. The ascendant had elements of the All-Father and the Chooser of the Slain Arlensul inside him. He would have drawn on those to imprison the rest of their divine gang. Could their knowledge also bring the walls down?

Had to.

The ascendant would know. The Aelen Kofer were peerless magical architects and engineers. They just needed his direction.

The Aelen Kofer gobbled steadily, gesturing, showing unusual animation. Februaren could not follow.

That little floating ruby dot grew. It burned more brightly. Ruby droplets dribbled down an invisible surface into the dead, colorless water.

There was a crack! of an explosion. Water sprayed the barge. A small wind heavy with alien odors knifed in behind it. And kept on coming, whistling.

“Success! Of a sort,” Gjoresson declared.

A vertical sword stroke of light three feet long, dropping into the water of the harbor, now hung in the air. It was an inch wide at its broadest, at the water level. Sunshine rushed in with the wind and odors. It was so bright!

Februaren said, “I didn’t realize how bleak it is over here.” His eyes adjusted. Blue water sparkled beyond the crack.

Where the breach met the harbor surface dull water began to show streams and eddies of color. Februaren felt gusts of power coming in with the wind and smells.

The Aelen Kofer started singing. Iron Eyes said, “The magic will return.”

From a world where the wells of power were drying up. Februaren wondered, was the power dying out of all the worlds?

He reminded himself that these worlds existed only to a few Instrumentalities and believers anymore. They were dying for sure.

The white shark broached feebly, halfway to the quay. It lived, just barely. Its eye fixed on the barge for one baleful moment.

Color continued to spread from the crack. Here, there, sparks of gold flashed for an instant on the rotten wood of the ship.

The power from that sea burst, over there, must still be strong.

A great whale eye appeared at the gap.

The Ninth Unknown raised a hand in greeting.

A worm of flesh started wriggling through.

Color spread. It climbed the side of the barge. Cloven Februaren opened himself to what power there was.

The Ninth Unknown knew exactly when the Windwalker sensed that the Realm of the Gods had been opened.

Iron Eyes shrieked.

Kharoulke had not known about the burst of power in the west. He did now. His attention had been attracted by a sudden, ferocious threat.