by Glen Cook
He was War. The thinker. The most dangerous in the long run.
That Instrumentality had a fierce hold on Red Hammer. War saw that the mortals were confident. War recognized the scent of god killers.
Other Instrumentalities bled into other silver glass vessels, most afraid to be hopeful. After an initial burst, they became calm and calculating. But they had been sealed into an inescapable pocket universe, with their dislikes for one another, for subjective ages.
They ought to be raving mad.
Heris said something to the Bastard. Renfrow eased over to the bottle farthest left. Meanwhile, the ascendant murmured what sounded like a roll call.
Each bottle contained multiple Instrumentalities. The pantheon of the Old Ones included numerous lesser deities, some of whom had been swept into Asgrimmur’s trap in his time of madness, following his unexpected ascension.
Heris said, “We’re short one. Where is the Trickster?”
Renfrow said, “He won’t come out. He thinks he’ll be blamed for everything.”
“That would be the history, wouldn’t it?” Whenever anything went wrong for this clutch of Instrumentalities, the Trickster was at the disaster’s root. “But he’s bullshitting this time. What’s he really up to?”
Asgrimmur opined, “He’s waiting for us to make a mistake. He’ll only need a second to get away.”
“Close the petcocks, Double Great.”
Chuckling, Cloven Februaren stepped to the farthest right bottle. He turned the handle of a silver valve in the tube connecting the alembic to the wall. He then wrapped the tube from the valve to the wall in silver foil. “One down.”
The Bastard and ascendant did the same to the alembics on the left while Februaren sealed off the bottle containing Red Hammer and War. Dark fog flooded the tube to that one an instant after Februaren shut the petcock. “He wants to play, now. Should I let him through?”
Asgrimmur rumbled, “Make him wait. The others will be more pliable if we keep him out of the way.”
Hecht volunteered, “That sounds good,” though he had no real say. This was his sister’s project, one hundred percent.
Heris said, “And that’s how we’ll proceed. Stay alert. This has gone the way it should, so far. Let’s not assume that it will keep on.”
Despite the admonition Hecht did relax. The time of highest risk had passed. The Old Ones had chosen to listen. Hard to stay intensely alert when there was no obvious threat.
No obvious threat? When these beings were what they were? And the plan was to compel them to serve, as though they were sprites or ifrits?
Hecht stared at Asgrimmur’s back, wondering. The man was the most alien of his experience, because of what he carried inside him. Yet amongst the personalities gathered here Grimmsson was only slightly outside normal.
Asgrimmur stepped to the leftmost alembic, flashed a smile at Vali, who kept getting more nervous as everything went well. “These are the gentle ones.” Sweet young female faces formed on the inside of the glass, drifted, distorting. “Eavijne is, anyway. Hourli, so-so. Not so much, Fastthal and Sprenghul.” He set his left hand on the glass. The only hand he had. He had lost the other to a fat old lord of the Grail Empire during an ill-conceived attack back in the time of his madness. Streaks of color, like a network of veins, spread through the nearby glass.
Hecht called across, “Asgrimmur, get out of Vali’s line of fire.” He hoped Vali would fire regardless. He was not sure she had what that would take. He had no doubts about Lila, though. Lila was hard. Lila would do what needed doing.
“No call to concern yourself, Commander. These four grasp the situation. They accept our terms.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. They are of the Night. They make decisions without agonizing.” A shot at the Commander of the Righteous of the Grail Empire. Hecht sent men into dire peril all the time but never without soul-searching beforehand and agonizing afterward.
Heris said, “Can it, Piper. My operation. Be quiet. Do your job.”
Hecht exchanged looks with his mistress. Anna could not restrain a grin. She enjoyed seeing him be one of the spear-carriers. Or match men.
Heris asked, “Can we trust them, Asgrimmur?”
“Yes.”
“You understand that your ass is on the line here, too?”
“I do, sweetheart. I’ll be the first to feel the pain if I’m wrong. But something down deep tells me the Trickster is the only one whose word can be suspect.”
“Then release them when you have their oaths. Once you’re absolutely sure. Understand?”
“I do.”
Piper Hecht stared at Heris. Was there more going on than just the business of the moment? He squinted at the ascendant.
“Piper, for heaven’s sake. Pay attention.” Anna, with a gentle reprimand because he was not watching his targeted alembic.
“Huh? Oh. Right.” Just the right time to get distracted by something stupid.
Trying to save face, he grumbled, “Asgrimmur, comfortable or not, you need to stay out of the lines of fire.”
The ascendant eased to the side of the silver glass teardrop. He disconnected it from its petcock, then spun the bottle so its stem pointed between Vali and Anna.
A puff of dense smoke shot out. It stretched into a vertical bar. The bar dispersed into a bipedal shape, translucent, gained color and solidity, became a well-preserved graying blonde in her forties, five feet tall and naked, who stepped to the side of the alembic opposite Asgrimmur.
Another puff. This was an Instrumentality with a sense of humor. The puff emerged as a smoke ring, then followed the precedent already set, producing a similar naked form, but darker. Hecht thought she must be aspected to night. He felt creepy, looking at her.
The first out acquired clothing in a style centuries out of date.
Third to arrive was a woman with hair a washed-out ginger.
The second out was fashion-conscious. The clothing she assumed mimicked Vali’s.
Last out was a tall, thin blonde who seemed terribly worried. Her aspect was younger than the others.
None of the four projected any strong sense of the supernatural. Dressed appropriately none would have turned heads on a Brothen street. None seemed driven to cloak in a glamour. The last was the most attractive, but in a nonthreatening way.
The ascendant made introductions. “Fastthal. Sprenghul. Hourli. And Eavijne.”
The tall woman said, “Eavijne, who must tend her orchard immediately or your work here will have been wasted.”
Eavijne spoke a dead language but the Commander of the Righteous understood. Meaning reached his mind without troubling his ears.
Her pantheon depended on her golden apples. They had been away from the fruit for an age.
Her orchard was in a state so sad it might never produce again.
Hecht eyed the ascendant. What was his opinion? Heris did the same, and asked, “Asgrimmur?”
“It’s unavoidable. And we have her word. Release her. Though I can’t imagine where she’ll find the magic she needs.”
Heris decided. “Go, Eavijne. The rest of you, get out of the way. Back where the floor is painted green.”
Eavijne left. The Old Ones, tight of lip, moved to the green. Hecht suspected they had tasted the world and had found it unable to deliver any magic. They had no choice but to abide by their word.
The connection to the alembic in front of Hecht rattled. The silver foil wrapping curled back slightly, revealing a tube gone dark as night. The Trickster’s panic could be felt, faintly.
Hecht’s son Pella joined his sister Vali. They shifted the aim of her falcon to the rattling bottle.
The Instrumentality settled down. It could not break the tubing.
Heris asked, “Asgrimmur, who’s next?” The ascendant was helping the Bastard watch Cloven Februaren reconnect the first bottle to its feed.
“Hammer and Zyr.”
“Sounds risky. Why?”
“Red Hammer is risky. He’s emotionally juvenile. But War is the opposite. He’s the most thoughtful Shining One. The others respect his wisdom. He’s the one most likely to adapt.”
“Double Great, you done with that? Good. Asgrimmur, make it happen.”
Cloven Februaren joined the ascendant. He disconnected the bottle from its petcock while Asgrimmur laid hand on and talked fast.
Voice choking, Anna said, “Asgrimmur, get out of my line of fire!”
The ascendant stepped aside. “There isn’t a problem that…”
Anna’s face went white. She stabbed her slow match into the touch hole of her falcon.
A shadow burst out of the silver glass bottle’s opening.
Enriched godshot shredded the Instrumentality called Red Hammer. It shattered the bottle and the entity still inside it, too, along with everything else between Anna and the wall. It ripped the clay pad there. The blast shifted tables and broke small glassware. The roar deafened everyone.
It stunned or rendered unconscious those who had been in front of the falcon’s mouth.
Seeing no one else fit, Hecht took charge. By means of signs he got his family to drag the others back behind the falcons. Some hearing returned by the time they finished. Hecht told Pella, “Help your mother reload and shift her aim. I’ll take care of these folks.”
There was little he could do now. Time would bring them back.
His own hearing returned quickly. First voice he heard was Anna wanting to know if she had done the right thing.
“Absolutely, darling. The demon meant to attack Asgrimmur.”
“But…”
“You did the right thing.” That was what she needed to hear.
The lesson was not lost on the watching goddesses. They looked stricken.
Massaging his ears, the ascendant stood. “They’ve just fully realized that they’re in the presence of the Godslayer. Ironically, their fear of him triggered the cascade of events that brought them to this.”
“Godslayers,” Hecht mumbled. Grimmsson looked like a man with a biting ulcer. “What’s the matter?”
“There isn’t much Gray Walker left but what remains is distraught. Red Hammer was his son. Zyr was his only real friend.”
Hecht eyed the ascendant’s stump. That lost god-friend, Zyr, had been a one-hander, too. “What about Arlensul?”
“I get nothing.”
“Wasn’t Red Hammer her brother?”
“Half brother. Like most of the early gods, the Walker got around.”
“Didn’t call him All-Father for nothing, eh?”
“No. Also, Arlensul didn’t like Red Hammer.”
“Where do we stand now?”
“Heris will now get all the cooperation she wants. Extinction means more to immortals with no expectation of an afterlife. Mortals arrive in the world under sentence of death. We know it, we don’t like it, but we accept the fact that we can’t do anything about it.”
“Let’s hope she does get what she wants.” He was not sure what that was, though.
She did, for sure, have her entire self wrapped up in it, though.
* * *
Four hours fled before everyone recovered enough to continue. Some ate. Old soldier Piper Hecht napped.
Ferris Renfrow tried communicating with the freed goddesses. They were not gracious. Had they not been at a disadvantage they would have had nothing to do with Arlensul’s half-breed get.
When awake Hecht kept an eye on Cloven Februaren. The old boy’s mad, adolescent sense of humor might cause him to do something absurd.
Heris and the ascendant cleared the mess left by the falcon blast. They tossed the wreckage out the windows.
Pella helped. Though afraid of heights he liked watching stuff fall.
Hecht came out of his nap to find the Old Ones gone. He started to demand an explanation, stifled himself. He was not used to not being in charge. Nor did it matter where they had gone. They could not leave the Realm of the Gods.
“How are you holding up?” he asked Anna.
“I’m all right. I napped some, too. Not as enthusiastically as the Snore King, though.”
This was good. She could joke. “How about…?”
“I worked it out. I had no choice. And Vali would have taken the shot if I hadn’t, anyway.”
Hecht glanced at Vali. She nodded.
Heris said, “Stop fussing, little brother. She’s good. We’re all good. We can hear again. No harm done, and nobody is hungry. Let’s get to work.”
“All right. But I’m wondering where we’re going, Heris. You killed the Windwalker. He was the reason this all got started.”
“Kharoulke had a family. Vrislakis. Zambakli Souleater. Djordjevice the Foul.”
“And?”
“And they are all spawn of the primal Night, freed by the ice and going unchallenged because Asgrimmur imprisoned the Old Ones. They’re starting to recover,” said Heris.
“Kharoulke couldn’t fight you off.”
“He was alone. I wasn’t. And other old evils are wakening, too, Instrumentalities who think in millennial terms. They can wait for help from wicked people.”
“Huh?”
“Rudenes Schneidel? People doing what we are but with bloody evil intent?”
Hecht gaped, startled by her passion.
“You know er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen, Piper. How many resurrections has he been tied to? He won’t stop till he succeeds. You thwarted him in the Connec and at Arn Bedu but he’ll be up to some other villainy by now.”
Hecht stared. Heris said, “You know where destiny is taking you. You’ll need all the help you can get on the way.” She gestured at the remaining alembics. “If our clumsiness hasn’t turned them against us.”
“I suspect clumsiness doesn’t account for much.”
Heris nodded. Her expression turned grim. Then she winked. “Onward, little brother. To the next step.”
“Did anybody check for blast damage to the connector tubes?”
“Double Great did. They’re sound at the wall. He rigged the bowl for the soul egg feed to the one that connected to the bottle Anna shot.”
“But that one didn’t have the double petcock.”
“No. The one in front of you did. The tube had a bigger diameter and bent down behind, to the second petcock, but it got cut by shrapnel.”
Hecht eyed the head-high bowl Februaren had rigged. “That’s too precarious. You put weight in there, it’ll tip over. Why not wait and see what you can do with the right feed once we let those things out?”
Heris restrained her stubborn determination to be in charge. “Double Great. What do you think?”
“That this time Piper’s head is working right. We need the double valve to manage the Trickster.”
“All right. Let’s do that.”
* * *
The next release brought forth three Old Ones, all female. Of those Hecht already knew one, Wife. That was a name, not a title, though Wife was the spouse of the Gray Walker.
Hecht watched them swear oaths that bound them to good behavior. Asgrimmur leaned closer as the second goddess swore. “Sheaf. Aspected to grain and crop fertility.” As though that ought to mean something. “She’ll need watching. She was Red Hammer’s number-one wife. And these Instrumentalities can be big on revenge. And the pretty one is Aldi.”
Cloven Februaren joined them. “One more bottle. And one unhappy Trickster still in storage.”
The ascendant missed his tone. He nodded. “The last two. One god, one goddess. But she’s Red Hammer’s mother.”
Februaren said, “I’m thinking we have more trouble than you’ve let on, friend Asgrimmur.”
“What do you mean?”
“That this can’t be on the up-and-up. You supposedly trapped all of the Old Gods here, except Ordnan and Arlensul. Right?”
Silence overran the chamber, the Great Sky Fortress, the Realm of the Gods. Cloven Februaren had used a name never to be spoken by mortal men.<
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Asgrimmur started shaking. “Aaron’s Balls, old man! Have a care!”
“Why? He’s gone. Less than the whisper of a ghost. Right?”
“Names have vast power.”
“A root theorem of magic. So. How about you share some names that we might not find on the roster of Instrumentalities we’re bringing back here,” said Februaren.
“I don’t understand.”
“I doubt that. This old man didn’t spend all his time with Iron Eyes swapping tall tales and seeing who could drink the most dwarf beer.”
Heris was behind Asgrimmur now, and distinctly unhappy. “What’s the story, Double Great?”
“An old one, maybe. But I’m not quite ready to say we’ve been hornswoggled.”
“Double Great!”
“All right! There are problems with our situation. Anomalies.”
“Such as?” Heris asked.
“I got Iron Eyes to tell me what he could about the Old Ones. Now I’m raising questions. There are whole platoons of gods and goddesses who didn’t get stuck inside Asgrimmur’s pocket reality. Assuming twelve really is how many were trapped here. Which is what the Aelen Kofer claim.”
Asgrimmur slumped. “It’s true. I should’ve seen it. But it’s also true that these twelve are all who were here when I locked them up. I’m thinking now, maybe, thanks to Korban’s father. He was here, I think. My memories aren’t very clear.”
Februaren said, “I’ve studied this mythology, Asgrimmur. There are problems with your story.”
“There are inconsistencies in every faith, old man. We blind ourselves willfully. What’s your particular problem?” The ascendant grew more disturbed as the old sorcerer prodded.
“The Trickster.”
“Uh … and?”
“The tale of the Old Ones is a long one. It’s convoluted and filled with the aforementioned inconsistencies. They defeated the primal Instrumentalities, Kharoulke, Vrislakis, and their kin. But the Gray Walker wasn’t top Shining One back then. He had a father and a grandfather. He had some brothers. It took them all to make the middle world and create people. Zyr was around before most of the Old Ones. He may have been a friend of Ordnan’s grandfather. The dwarves say he was a more important god, way back.