“She’ll be here any minute.”
Turking and Felske brought the courses with a noteworthy absence of enthusiasm. As though they were stalling.
Heris came in, roughly dressed. Turking and Felske hustled in the small courses she had missed. Even Mrs. Creedon took a moment to bring her a single marinated cheese and onion-stuffed mushroom. Heris grunted pleasure and dug in. Evidently her story would be shared only if necessary.
Principat? Delari became taciturn, his contribution to table talk vague questions for the girls about their progress at school. To which Lila was the unexpectedly enthusiastic respondent. She found intellectual pursuits more interesting than did Vali. Hecht was surprised.
People never stopped not being what you expected.
Turking and Felske came to life. In a trice they produced the clutter of another place setting as Cloven Februaren dragged in.
Hecht observed, “Borrowing from my friend Pinkus, you look like death on a stick.”
“No doubt.” Cloven Februaren did look like he had suffered extreme starvation.
Delari said, “He’s the picture of health, now. You should’ve seen him this morning. I thought his story was over.”
The Ninth Unknown settled. He picked at his food, ferociously. He made Vali and Lila uncomfortable. Anna needed to release those girls into the wild. They needed re-exposure to reality. They had developed amnesia about their own early romances with the harsh side. Februaren said, “I spent a night in Elf Hill. It was worse than any of the stories.”
Hecht said, “I don’t get it.”
Delari said, “You should. It’s part of the northern thing. Up there people believe that we share the world with lots of other races. The Hidden Folk, collectively. Pixies. Brownies. The Fair Folk. Light elves and dark elves. Goblins, dwarves, the People of the Sea. And dozens more.”
“Not to mention the evil dead,” Februaren grumped.
Delari ignored him. “The Hidden Folk get up to all sorts of mischief. Some good, some bad, according to their nature. More bad than good, of course. A favorite trick is to lure a mortal into their realm, where time passes differently.”
“Usually a lot slower over there,” Februaren said. “In the Realm of the Gods it was the other way around. I used up all my food and was starving. It’s true about the food, too. It helped me forget I was hungry but it didn’t provide enough nourishment.”
Delari said, “The point is, while he was there for months only a few days passed here.”
“So you did what you went off to do. You released the…”
“I did not. Not even close. The Old Ones are locked up like olives inside a cask closed inside a sealed barrel. My success amounted to opening the way between the middle world and the Realm of the Gods. This being what those involved with the northern thing call the middle world. Because of where it stands in relation to the other worlds involved in their concept of the universe. Oh. Success number two. I talked the Aelen Kofer into helping break the Old Ones out.”
Hecht resisted a conditioned response, reminding himself, yet again, that all beliefs were true inside the Night.
The children had grown bored. The Ninth Unknown had not described his adventure in epic terms. Which was a little out of character.
Februaren said, “After all that positive news you just know there’s got to be a catch.”
Principat? Delari seemed to be hearing all this for the first time, too. “Grandfather. Please.”
Februaren’s grin was a ghost of itself. “All right. Time is important. The way is open. The magic is flowing in. The Aelen Kofer can rebuild the rainbow bridge to the Great Sky Fortress. We can get that far.”
“But?” Delari, with a scowl.
“But the Windwalker is on his way. And we can’t get inside. Only someone with the blood of the Old Ones can crack the last barrier.”
Delari said, “And those of the blood are all inside.”
“Basically. I thought the ascendant could manage. He has chunks of the knowledge of Ordnan and Arlensul. And he shut them in. It seemed logical that he could undo what he did.”
“But not so,” Delari guessed.
“No. He did the job too damned good. And there is some mythological imperative at work. One even a freethinker like me, because I spent my life immersed in Brothen Episcopal Chaldarean culture, can’t get to make sense. What it comes down to is, if we’re going to spring the Old Ones so they can stop the Windwalker, we need someone of their blood to kick down the door.”
Anna startled everyone by chiming in. “From what I’ve heard, the male Old Ones doinked every farmer’s and woodcutter’s daughter they ran into when they visited our world.”
“It would be hard to find those descendants,” Delari said. “They haven’t done that sort of thing for four hundred years. The blood would be pretty thin.”
Februaren said, “There’s another option. According to the ascendant.”
“Gedanke,” Hecht guessed, wondering why he even recalled that name. Was he damned eternally because he had acquired that kind of wicked knowledge?
“Right road.” Februaren was startled. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess. That and the fact that most of what happened below the walls of al-Khazen had to do with the feud between the Banished and her father, over Gedanke.”
“Most of what happened had to do with the hunger of the Old Ones for the blood of the Godslayer. Arlensul took the opportunity to get revenge. Also, Gedanke was Arlensul’s lover. Not the child they created. The ascendant says Gedanke himself was there for the showdown. As one of the undead heroes. Which gave Arlensul added incentive in the fight.”
No one said anything. Hecht wondered why Februaren chose to discuss this over dinner. In the normal course, it would await withdrawal to the quiet room. He began peering into shadows and watching Turking and Felske closely.
The Ninth Unknown recognized the moment realization struck. He grinned, nodded, said, “The part of Arlensul the ascendant incorporated offered very useful information about her half-mortal bastard. She did her best to watch over him. He was still alive at the moment of her own demise.”
“That should narrow the search. There can’t be many men who have been around longer than you and who show the occasional burst of divine power. He would have some of that, wouldn’t he?”
“Excellent, Piper. He would, yes. But, chances are, he doesn’t know what he is. His mother never told him. He never saw her. He should think he’s just a very strange orphan.”
Principat? Delari interjected, “He’d have to suspect. If he had any familiarity with the mythology. If you grew up in that part of the world, were an orphan, had unusual abilities, and seemed to be immortal, wouldn’t you suspect something?”
“Of course, Muno. As far as I know-the Arlensul part of the ascendant isn’t completely forthcoming-the bastard should be a long-lived peasant or woodcutter somewhere in the northeastern part of the Grail Empire. The infant was abandoned in the sacristy of a forest church in the Harlz Mountains of Marhorva, a hundred miles from Grumbrag.”
Anna asked, “Could he be the one pretending to be Piper’s brother?”
Cloven Februaren chuckled, made a sign indicating that subject ought not to be pursued. Hecht asked, “And you know all this because?”
“Because the ascendant knows most of what the mother knew. Though she couldn’t provide any help locating him today. Or wouldn’t.”
“Meaning?”
“Even in severely reduced circumstances the Banished’s personality is still alive and independent. A tiny fraction, but the essence of who and what she was.”
Delari said, “Easy work now, Grandfather. Just pop up to that rustic church and work your way out in a spiral search, asking each man you meet if he’s four hundred years old. When you get an affirmative, you’ve found your half-blood god.”
“An ingenious strategy, Muno. Piper, the boy always did have a knack for slashing through the fog around the core. Though I have in mind a simpler, faster methodology.”