Glen Cook - Surrender to the will of the night

Heris and the Ninth Unknown got into some sort of squabble. They did not explain. Hecht thought the old man wanted to go find ships and sink them while Heris wanted to get on with her own project in the realm of legend, myth, and devil gods.

Heris said, “Piper, I need all those eggs you collected after you killed those Instrumentalities.”

“Why?”

“Instrumentalities have two souls. One they bring into the world with them and one they leave hidden in the Night. The eggs are their middle-world souls. If an egg and a hidden soul got together your success could be undone.”

“How about the thing in the catacombs?” The egg from that had not been collected.

“Double Great is sure it’s still down there, under the rubble.”

“I don’t know how much good I can do, Heris. I never kept those eggs myself. Rhuk and Prosek collected them. They sealed them up in metal boxes but I don’t know what they did with them after that.”

“Find out. I’ll make arrangements to collect and transport them.”

“What’re you going to do with them?”

“Get rid of them.”

But she had to get them to the Great Sky Fortress first. And she could not move them there by translating. The trapped souls might escape while she was cutting the chord.

Hecht was confused. But he did not need to understand so long as Heris and the Ninth Unknown did.

Hecht spent a few hours with Pinkus Ghort, watching his friend get drunk and listening to him complain. “I’m unemployed, Pipe. I’m glad we didn’t have to butt heads, but, shit, man, I’m out of a job.”

“That won’t last. They’ll need an experienced man to run the City Regiment.”

The Grand Duke had entered the city to maintain order. The Righteous were already moving out, headed for Alten Weinberg with Katrin’s casket at the head of the column. Hecht would catch up later.

Hecht visited the Bruglioni estate. He winced at all the damage his troops had done despite their best efforts.

He told Paludan Bruglioni and Gervase Saluda, “The curse of Piper Hecht keeps coming back on the Bruglioni. Gervase, I couldn’t talk Principat? Delari into it so I volunteered you to take over Krois. Somebody has to be in charge there till everything shakes out.”

“You’re making me Patriarch?”

Paludan laughed out loud. Saluda was not religious. He had gone into the Collegium only because the Bruglioni had had no better man.

“Pro tem. So there’s somebody with a hand on the reins. I’m in a rush. We need to get hold of the reins in Alten Weinberg, too.”

“But…”

“You’re it, Gervase.” Hecht did not stay to argue.

Things came together fast when the rich and powerful were frightened. Within thirty hours the Commander of the Righteous and the Grand Duke Hilandle jointly proclaimed Bayard va Still-Patter Imperial viceroy in Brothe. Pinkus Ghort became master of the City Regiment, which was to be reinforced by men from his disbanding Patriarchal force. And Gervase Saluda, numbed, moved into Krois.

After everything that the Princes of the Church had suffered lately, and with all the grim pressures toward honesty now obtaining, Hecht thought Saluda might well win an election. If an election were held. If the temporal Church chose to impeach Serenity, something that never had been done before. Traditionally, bad or unpopular Patriarchs were assisted in making an early transition to the afterlife. But this latest unpopular Patriarch could not be found to help along. And, as soon as the fear began to wear off, his friends would begin to resurface.

“Hopefully in the river,” Hecht said.

“Can you leave now?” Heris barked. “Can you goddamned well leave now, Piper Hecht? You bark at Grandfather because he has to be there for every goddamned little detail, but you’re twice as worse as he is. Come on! Let’s go! Now!”

Hecht’s cheeks reddened. Heris was right. And what she implied probably was, too. As he got older he became less comfortable trusting details to others. That was not good. That was not what had won him his reputation. That was not what had lifted him up to the heights he occupied now.

The Ninth Unknown snickered. “Some big-time kettle calling the pot going on here, Heris.”

Heris started pushing people together. There was a plan. Lila and the Ninth Unknown helped her. Hecht ended up in the middle, with Anna, Pella, and Vali pressed against him. They were surrounded by the other three, arms on each other’s shoulders, facing inward, squeezing everyone tighter.

The Eleventh Unknown observed, smiling benignly.

Smashed up inside all that friendly flesh Hecht suffered only a touch of nightmare during the transition to a strange gray place where his amulet became extremely excited.

He saw very little color, except for a gaudy ship tied up not far away. He did not at first look up.

People came out of a genial building not far away. Some were familiar, most were not. All were armed with huge mugs, and they all seemed friendly.

Hecht recognized Ferris Renfrow and the ascendant. The short, wide, extremely hairy people, all helmets, beards, mail, and cutlery, he knew only from stories heard from his sister.

What madness, this? He had been brought up a devout Praman. This was impossible.

He looked up the mountain now, gawked at the rainbow bridge and the impossibly huge and impossibly tall castle.

Heris edged in beside him. She whispered, “How was that transition? Better?”

“Much. But it wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t put me in the middle. Pella! Freeze. If you even think about wandering off…”

Pella took one good look at the dwarves, then sidled over between Lila and Vali.

Vali indicated Renfrow. “I remember that man. He was at the Knight of Wands.”

Anna had been stricken dumb. Hecht took her hand, entwined fingers, and held on, afraid she would bolt or faint.

Heris made the introductions. Ferris Renfrow, known in myth as the Bastard. Asgrimmur Grimmsson, soultaken, ascendant, and the once upon a time ferocious Andorayan pirate Svavar. Khor-ben Jarneyn Gjoresson, also mythical and better remembered as Korban Iron Eyes, crown prince of the Aelen Kofer. Behind Iron Eyes: his father and his son, Gjore and Copper. Then this dwarf and that, all of whose names she had harvested and quietly memorized, to their consternation. Then, suddenly, in a dark and dangerous temper, with taut throat, because the mer had both surprised her and had arrived in her most toothsome form yet, leaving a wet trail across the quay, “And Philleas Pescadore, who speaks for the people of the sea.”

Anna nearly crushed Hecht’s hand. He was so glad she had hold of the uninjured one.

Pella drooled. His sisters hung on and hated the mer for her naked perfection.

All of which went right past Philleas.

Heris said, “We need to get on with this. Most of us have critical obligations back in the middle world. Iron Eyes, Asgrimmur, talk to my brother while I talk to Renfrow.”

Hecht wanted to deliver a vigorous kick to his sister’s butt. She had said that deliberately.

The Ninth Unknown collected the ascendant and Korban Iron Eyes to one side. It was obvious they were old cronies. Hecht felt left out. And, while he understood that was not deliberate, neither was he accustomed to being an also there, in the margins, not part of what was happening.

Heris just wanted him here to witness. Wanted him to see how clever she was.

Hecht decided he was all right with that. Heris, like Lila, needed validation. Let her be the shining star. She deserved it.

He suspected, though, that several others might consider themselves the star.

He was wrong. Even the ancients deferred to Heris. Heris was the central force. They considered her the real Godslayer, hero nonpareil. Piper Hecht was a passenger.