Glen Cook - Surrender to the will of the night

“Sent by someone? Or just local spooks?”

Hecht shrugged. “One, the other, or both. Doesn’t matter.”

“I’ll look into it.” Consent’s tone suggested deep skepticism. “There have been no reports. And the villa is warded at double and triple depth.”

“Was it exorcised before we moved in?” He was taking the pretense too far but could not stop.

Consent said, “That might be it. We’ll move you to a room far away from this one.”

“That’s all right. I like this one.”

“Despite the nightmares? You’re getting scary, boss. I wish you’d stop.”

Hecht understood perfectly. He had done a lot, lately, that Titus considered troubling.

“Titus, I don’t do it on purpose.”

Consent seemed to understand what he meant.

Hecht told his staff, “You’ve all been worried about me lately. I point out that I’m still doing my job. And the Empress and I expect you to go on doing yours. Which will be whatever she tells us it is. I don’t expect you to be happy about that. I’m not. But the discretion I enjoy will be limited because she’s right here with us. I can argue with her. She tolerates that. And lets me change her mind occasionally. But that’s only when there aren’t any witnesses. If someone is watching she won’t budge to save her own life.”

Clej Sedlakova asked, “What’s your point?”

“That, going forward, we won’t have the freedom of action we’re used to. We’ll operate according to the Empress’s mood because she plans to stay right here with us.”

Rumble rumble. Somebody growled, “That’ll draw unfriendlies like shit draws flies.”

Hecht nodded. Having trouble staying awake.

Sedlakova quickly established himself as the loudest voice. “Boss, we need to get a lot stronger before we go racing around in open country. I’d bet they could have a force ten times the size of ours up here by tomorrow. If they’re really in a mood to be nasty.”

Consent observed, “That all depends on one man. Serenity.”

Hecht asked, “You suggesting we go on the defensive, Clej?” Disinclined to mention Heris’s suggestion that Serenity might field a mob twenty thousand strong.

“We aren’t known for that, I admit.”

“But that’s your recommendation. And I agree. Much as I’d like to go whooping through the hills and vales toward Brothe, setting fires and ruining Patriarchal vineyards. That’s why I have all those scouts out. They’re looking for a place to make a showing if we’re forced to. That’s why you’re all supposed to be thinking about ways we can protect ourselves while we wait for our friends to show up.” Twenty thousand. He could not get that number out of his head.

“Will she be patient?”

“She’s impulsive but she isn’t stupid. She’ll listen.”

Drago Prosek asked, “You think we can count on the Grand Duke to answer her summons?”

The key question, perhaps.

“I do. For reasons to do with his character rather than his notion of an obligation to the Grail Throne.”

Consent inquired, “So now we buy time?”

“Aggressively. As aggressively as we dare. Making Serenity focus on our trivial force while the real storm gathers behind him.” Twenty thousand.

Prosek said, “That’ll be easy. All we need to do is what they did with Sublime, back when. Destroy his family stuff. Whatever he sucks money out of.”

Sedlakova did not like that. Neither did he like Serenity. But he could never be comfortable while hearing a Patriarch accused of corruption, even obliquely.

“Come on, Clej. Even you got to admit…”

“Never mind,” Hecht snapped.

Kait Rhuk, who had just arrived, settled next to Hecht. “I found the place. It’s perfect. I’ve got people moving up there already. Hey! You all right, boss? You don’t look so good.”

Hecht muttered something about the pain from his wound. Then he fell asleep right there, in the middle of the meeting.

He dreamed unpleasant dreams.

Heris guessed right, first try. The entire brain trust of the divine liberation expedition had assembled in the Aelen Kofer tavern on the waterfront to refine nebulous plans by lubricating them liberally. Cloven Februaren started barking the second she stepped inside. “Where the hell have you been, girl?”

The Ninth Unknown was not a happy man. There had been no mischief whatsoever for him to get up to for however long he had been confined to the Realm of the Gods.

With no clear proof Heris could not be sure, but after her several passages to and fro, she suspected the time differential between the middle world and the Realm of the Gods was inconstant. There might be a predictable cycle, though time would never pass slower here than it did at home.

She told Februaren, “There were things going on in the real world, Double Great. None of them happy.” She offered a synopsis. The old man plucked additional meaning from between her words.

He and Ferris Renfrow immediately insisted, “I have to get back there.”

Heris said, “I’m only an amateur observer but I thought the great horse of chaos was galloping along just fine without either one of you yanking on the reins.”

Neither was in a mood to be chided. Each wanted to drag her off for a private interview.

The ascendant, who never spoke, had a glint in his eye, too.

Heris ignored them all. “Iron Eyes. I came up with an arsenal of the kind of weaponry we ran into at the Bas… At Ferris Renfrow’s palace. Plenty enough to give us the edge with these Instrumentalities. I need Aelen Kofer help getting them here, though.”

“Indeed?” Sourly. Then, “Really?” with more enthusiasm, as some stray thought wandered through his head.

Which Heris identified in one.

The Aelen Kofer were the artisans of the gods. How hard could it be for them to improve the new weapons? Dramatically?

Might not be the best plan, letting them get intimate with such deadly but essentially simple tools, the efficiency of which was limited only by the difficulties inherent in casting them.

Clever artificers like the Aelen Kofer would be quick to find alloys, casting and cooling processes, and spells that would help them create bigger, lighter, more accurate, and more deadly falcons. Especially when they had the temporal advantage of working under the hill.

Februaren and Renfrow went on fussing about their obligations in the middle world.

“So go!” Heris growled. “Asgrimmur and I can manage things here.”

It turned out that there would be serious problems. The Aelen Kofer could not reach the Krulik and Sneigon works directly. There would be a lot of walking the middle world needed. Though, Heris discovered belatedly, that would not require the whole dwarf race to go traipsing across the Grail Empire in a loud, gaudy mob. One skilled magic-using dwarf could do the walking and opening of the way. Which, evidently, was an escape skill many Aelen Kofer learned early.

Of course, a gang would be needed to haul the weapons away. But they, and their goats, could make the journey in lazy stages on the other side. The dwarves never mentioned their rune-laden standing stones.

“Double Great! Before you bail out on me. You heard what we’ve been talking about.”

“No. I wasn’t listening.”

“Listen now. I have a cache of weapons over there with nobody guarding them. I didn’t think about that when I asked… for them. You understand me?”

The old man sighed and nodded. “Give me the gruesome details. I’ll take care of it.” Like Pella, she reflected, when he was asked to do a chore. Totally put-upon.

Cloven Februaren was an eternal adolescent. Incredibly powerful, a genius-with all the acquired personal skills of a spoiled fourteen-year-old.