Heris said, “We think the rest of the Shining Ones can help us here.”
“If you believe that you are deceiving yourself.”
Heris was startled. “How so?” That was a change.
“They have no reason. You cannot win commitments from them the way you extorted them from us. The ways to Eucereme are closed for a reason. The Raneul plan to evade the Twilight by sitting it out, an avoidance of destiny by abstention. Which I expect not to work.”
The more he said the more she realized that she had considered her choices from no perspective but her own-despite the Ninth Unknown’s similar argument when he tried to talk her out of this adventure.
She avoided Februaren’s eye. Smug old fart.
“I suppose.” It made sense when he said it. “Because I’m me I can’t see the doorway, but I know it’s here.” Hourlr nodded. She added, “I want to see the other world even if we never go there.”
Lila sniffed, moved in little shuffles, palms facing outward.
Februaren grunted suddenly. “What the hell? How did that…?”
“Double Great?”
“We’re about to solve a mystery. On the other side of this gateway.”
“What mystery is that?”
“Open it up. It could be my imagination.”
“Any idea how?”
Lila said, “I’ll do it.” She turned sideways.
Heris squeaked.
A rectangle of reality, shoulder-high and six feet wide, chunked backward two inches, then slid to the left, vanishing behind reality that did not move. Even the Instrumentality seemed awed.
The panel’s movement revealed Lila squatting in the mouth of a tunnel with a roof barely high enough to clear a tall dwarf’s crown. The rock appeared to be basalt. Basalt did not underlie this region. The light of the middle world, not bright back with the visitors, penetrated only a few yards into the passageway.
Vali observed, “It’s wider than it is tall.”
Lila said, “It’s really dirty, too.” She sneezed. “It would be big-time spider country if it wasn’t for regular traffic.”
The Instrumentality began to glow. That light all flowed into the tunnel, illuminating it for thirty yards. It ran downhill ten degrees, straight, wide, and low, the floor cluttered with dust and stone chips.
Lila sneezed again.
The Ninth Unknown mused, “It really is,” puzzling everyone. He pushed past Lila, bent over briefly, then took a knee and stirred the detritus.
“Aha!” He held up something shiny.
Heris blurted, “Piper’s missing pendant! How did that get in here?”
Meantime, the old man picked up what looked like shreds of silk. Like something a woman might once have worn next to her skin. He seemed baffled as he slipped the shreds inside his shirt.
Heris did not miss that.
She did not mention it. It could mean anything.
The old man, moving a foot at a time, produced other bits that must have gotten tracked in by the dwarves.
Hourlr asked, “Shall we see where the tunnel goes?”
Heris suggested, “You light the way.”
“Of course.”
Lila squeezed aside. The Ninth Unknown did the same. Heris followed the Instrumentality. She told the old man, “Give me that. I’ll get it back to Piper.”
Februaren surrendered the pendant without comment.
The tunnel ended at a wall of oak planks a hundred yards directly ahead. There were gaps between planks but nothing could be seen on the other side. “It’s dark over there,” Februaren said.
“Thus spake the Lord of the Obvious,” Heris said. “How come there aren’t any stars or anything?”
“The sky is overcast,” Hourlr said. “Can’t you feel the rain?”
Cold, damp air pushed through between planks.
Februaren predicted, “She’ll want to go ahead anyway.”
Vali said, “If we left the door open the cold air would cool things off up there … What?”
Even Lila looked at Vali like she wondered how her mind worked.
Hourlr said, “Leaving it open is not an option.”
Heris kicked a plank, hard, by throwing a foot out sideways. Something cracked, evidently not part of her. She kicked again.
Voices came down the tunnel. The Ninth Unknown cocked an ear. “Tribesmen. How long have we been down here?”
“Four minutes,” Heris replied. She kicked again. Nails squeaked. The right end of the plank backed off half a foot.
Hourlr said, “For them it has been an hour. They wonder where we have gotten to. A few are working themselves up to come find out.”
“You can understand them?” Heris asked.
“Some.”
“I thought time matched up between the middle world and the world of the dwarves.” She noted that Hourlr had begun to frown fiercely.
The Instrumentality got hold of the plank she had been kicking, pulled it back into place. “This is a trap. That isn’t Dwarvenholm. It’s the world of the giants. Help me.”
His glow revealed that the nails had been driven from the tunnel side. Heris’s kicks had broken the plank end.
Dawn began on the other side.
The Ninth Unknown said, “Vali, go scare those people away. Lila, work your way up the tunnel and find the way the dwarves really used. We’ll stay here and make sure nothing breaks through.”
There was enough light to reveal some of that world-in particular, that world’s creatures approaching. They did not conform to Heris’s preconception. The nearest pair resembled very large scorpions moving sluggishly in the cold and damp. Farther off, things like giant crabs moved more briskly, headed toward the gateway. The scorpions were a brownish yellow, the crabs pale red.
Hourlr told Heris, “Those are not the giants. Those are their watchdogs. But the giants are coming. We’ll need this sealed completely before they get here. Stand back. Let me work.”
The giants, Heris recalled, were mortal enemies of those who hailed from the Realm of the Gods. She recalled the giant bones scattered down the cliffs below the Great Sky Fortress.
“Done!” Hourlr muttered. “And just in time. Have a look.” Heris squinted through a gap between planks.
A troop of huge beings loomed over a ridgeline half a mile away, barely visible through the drizzle. They advanced with vast, slow strides. The biggest had to be a hundred feet tall. The ground began to tremble.
Heris grumbled, “Why don’t they collapse under their own weight?”
Hourlr said, “That’s a glamour. They are not actually that big. And they are supernatural. The Night frees them from many constraints of the natural realm.”
“Whatever. I find myself moved by an overwhelming disinterest. Let’s get out of here.”
“Not just another pretty face. She’s smart, too.”
“Stuff that.” Heris headed uphill, toward sounds of agitation that must be Vali’s fault.
This time she sensed a change as she neared Lila because she was feeling for it. Lila said, “There’s another tunnel here, sealed the same as the entrance up top. We didn’t notice because it’s on the side and we were in a hurry. Triple Great. Get behind Aunt Heris.” She made a simple gesture after he moved.
This door opened as though on hinges, folding out from its downhill edge, to exactly block the tunnel. There was a click! when it reached a right angle. Solid stone seemed to close the way. Heris wondered if giants coming up would see a similar wall from the other side.
This side felt like rock to the touch. It was rough and cold and growing damp.
Hourlr entered the new tunnel, which ran level and curved to the right. The Instrumentality moved carefully, assessing his surroundings. Heris suspected that he was embarrassed about having a mere mortal girl find what a god had missed.
She hoped that made Lila less interesting.
After ninety degrees of curvature the side tunnel came to another barrier of planks. It was raining on the other side here, too. Heris snarled, “We’re back where we were before.”
Lila disagreed. “There aren’t any giants.”
Hourlr nodded, then slid aside for Cloven Februaren, avoiding contact as though the old man had sprouted cactus spines. He did contrive to brush against Heris, though. She jumped and squeaked. His touch was a sharp shock, not what she expected and not at all exciting.