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.