If eyeballs turning from one face to another made a sound, the sound would have deafened me. As it was, the silence fell on the room like thick, heavy snow.
“The first step is going through this proo and finding Luka. I’m going, and if you don’t want to come with me, I won’t hold it against you. There is no decision for the group in this, each one of us has to decide.”
Meuhlnir came to stand by me. “Count me on your side, Hank,” he said.
Sif shook her head but moved to his side, carrying her healing bag and muttering under her breath.
“Would it be better if fewer of us went?” I asked Meuhlnir, but with my gaze resting on Sif’s face.
He glanced at his wives, his jaw set when he did so. “I’m going.”
“We all are,” said John.
“Let’s go,” said Althyof with a sigh. “I’m in it for the silver, anyway.”
“Yeah, you sure are,” I said with a grin.
After a moment, his grin answered mine, and I nodded, reaching for the proo.
Forty-six
Emerging from the proo first, I nodded to myself when I found it was where I’d left it. I could get to like having a proo that no one could mess with. I wondered if my preer would be invisible to the Plauinn as they were to Haymtatlr.
Stepping away from the proo, I scanned the foliage nearby, but there was nothing but trees in my visual field. Behind me, I heard the soft pops of the proo disgorging my family and friends. There were a lot of popping noises, and I suppressed a sigh of relief. I’d have gone on with a few or even none of them, but I felt better about my plan with my party at my back.
“Well? Where is the dog-faced boy?” asked Jane. She bent and deposited the pups on the forest floor. I expected them to romp and roll around like the puppies they were, but they seemed cowed by the forest, and they stuck close to Jane and me.
“I haven’t looked yet. I wanted to make sure this wasn’t an ambush.” She slipped her hand into mine, and I glanced down at her. “Thanks for coming.”
“Shut up, idiot.” She smiled and leaned in, so I did what every red-blooded man would do: I licked her cheek. “Eww! Yuck!”
“That’s for calling me insane.”
“Why don’t you go sleep,” she said with a broad, mischievous smile.
“Nah. Not tired right now. Besides, I don’t want to wake up with a mouthful of your little shield.”
“Little shield?” She thumped her thumb on the edge of the round shield. “It’s hardly little.” She looked around at the massive forest surrounding us. “Is this Alfhaym?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “but it reminds me of it.”
“No,” said Yowtgayrr from behind us. “Alfhaym has more species of trees. This place is…unnatural. Who ever heard of a forest with only ash trees?”
“That you know these trees belong to one species is bad enough, but knowing the species makes you sound like a tree-stalker,” said Jane.
“Why would anyone stalk trees? They don’t move.” The confusion in the Alf’s voice made both my wife and me chuckle.
“It’s an expression from Mithgarthr. It’s used to describe people obsessed with someone else.”
“That usage, at least, makes sense,” said Yowtgayrr. “But look, there’s no underbrush, no vines, no other plant life at all. This forest is most unusual.”
“Just wait,” I said. “Wait until you catch a glimpse of Iktrasitl.”
“More trees!” bellowed Althyof. “Just once, I’d like our journey to take us to a nice underground cavern!”
“You’d complain about that, too,” said Yowtgayrr with half a grin hidden behind his hand.
“Trees!” The way Althyof said it made it clear he considered the word an expletive. “So?” he said, turning to me and stepping in front of Yowtgayrr. “Where is our puppy-dog friend?”
I looked down, intending to scan the area for Luka’s slowthar, and was astonished to find slowthar everywhere. They obscured the ground, there were so many. I had never expected there to be many slowthar here, it was too unbelievable a place to begin with for people to seek it out—let alone find it. “Hmmm.”
“Tougher than you expected?”
“No, but slowthar cover the place,” I said. “How could so many people even find this place?”
“Doesn’t make sense, does it?” said Kuhntul from somewhere off in the trees.
“Oh, great,” murmured Jane.
“Why are there so many, Kuhntul?” I asked, giving Jane’s hand a squeeze.
“Think about what this place is, even if only from the mythology you know.”
I shook my head. “It was a holy place at the center of the universe.”
“And so it is,” she said, still hiding in the shadows of the trees, but I thought I detected a glimmer of white amongst all the shadows. “Many cultures believe in such a tree, or trees. In many places, these trees serve a religious purpose.”
“Like the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” said Jane. “Or the tree of life.”
Kuhntul walked from the trees, smiling at Jane. “Yes. Hello, Jane.” Swathed in white, her pale skin almost seemed to be a garment she pulled on and off at will. Her long white hair shimmered in what sunlight made it through the roof of branches above us.
“Hello, Kuhntul,” Jane said.
“So why so many slowthar?” I asked. “Yeah, many cultures have trees in their mythologies. So what?”
Kuhntul shrugged. “Many come here in a state of dreamslice reflection—holy men, seekers of knowledge, seekers of wisdom…” She turned and winked at me. “You came here once for that purpose.”
I shook my head. “As I recall, I’ve never come here by choice before today.”
She smiled her smile and tilted her head to the side. “Is it so? And what is a choice when it comes down to it?”
“Ach!” growled Althyof. “Have you seen Luka or not?”
Her face grew cold with glacial slowness, and she spun on her heel to face Althyof. “How I wish you didn’t enjoy this one’s company, Tyeldnir,” she sighed.
Althyof made a derisive noise and swatted the air between them.
“But I do,” I said quietly.
“More’s the pity,” Kuhntul said. “Yes, I can find Luka, Tverkr, and with ease, but Hank needs to understand this place.”
“Hank, this one is a waste of time.”
“No, Althyof. She, too, is my friend.”
Kuhntul smiled. “Why, Tyeldnir! I wasn’t aware you thought so highly of me.” She took a step closer, and Jane’s nails bit into the back of my hand. Kuhntul’s gaze flickered to Jane and back to mine. “Not to worry, Jane. Tyeldnir has made his preference clear.”
“So…finding Luka myself will somehow give me a better understanding of the Conflux?”
Kuhntul shrugged with her eyebrows. “It may, but the point I wanted to make is that this place differs from what you believe is ‘normal.’”
I waved my hands at the millions of ash trees that surrounded us. “Noted.”
“Your assumptions may be dangerous here.” A grim smile played on her lips. “Tell me what you see.”
I suppressed a sigh of exasperation. “Trees.”
“Not there, Tyeldnir.” She pointed at the ground. “Here.”
“Oh. A gerbillion slowthar, all intertwined, almost knotted together.”
“A gerbillion?” she asked, one eyebrow arched.
“He means ‘a lot,’” said Jane. “He likes to make up words.”
“Ah, yes. And can you not pick out the slowth of our dear Luka?”
I glanced back down at the knot at my feet. “Yes, it’s here.”
“And do all these slowthar look the same?”
I already knew the answer to that. “No, the Three Maids’ slowthar diverge from the rest of ours.”
“Is that all?”
“No,” I said, glancing at Althyof. “Yours is different, too.”
“Mine?” Kuhntul’s face wriggl
ed with an amused surprise.
I nodded. “There are minor differences according to race—for instance, I can tell an Isir from a Tverkar with a mere glance.”
Kuhntul nodded. “But the Nornir?”
“Yes, there is the racial difference, but the differences don’t end there.” I paused, thinking about Bikkir’s slowth. “They are thicker, more…more…”
“More robust?” asked Kuhntul.
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Mine, as well?”
“Well, yours contrasts with theirs, as well. Not as thick. Also, I couldn’t dip into Bikkir’s slowth without his assistance.”
“And mine?” she asked, a strange emotion flickering in her eyes and her voice hoarse with it.
“I’ve never tried.” I glanced down at the slowth at her feet. “If you’d prefer me to—”
“No!” she said, taking a few steps back. “I…” She glanced around at our faces, as though taken aback by her own excessive reaction. “Tyeldnir, promise me you will not dip into my past. Not without my permission.”
I glanced at Jane, who gazed at Kuhntul through narrowed eyes. “Who do you remind me of, Kuhntul?” she mused.
Kuhntul glanced at her—a quick touch of her gaze on Jane’s eyes—then returned her gaze to mine. “Promise me, Tyeldnir!” she rasped.
“Okay,” I said with a shrug. “I’ll leave you your privacy.”
She sighed and closed her eyes.
“My promise is binding as long as I believe you are our friend, acting in our best interests.”
Kuhntul nodded once and seemed much relieved. “Fine. I’ve been your friend since long before we met.”
Althyof scoffed.
“I have!” she insisted. “I worked long and hard to Tyeldnir’s benefit. There was so much to arrange…not that a mercenary such as you would understand!”
I cleared my throat. “Would you two just get over whatever it is that makes you act like children?”
Althyof grunted. “Children? Children?”
A small smile flickered on Kuhntul’s lips.
“I have told you the story!” Althyof snapped. “The insult of it… You know I’m not one to hold a grudge—”
“Ha!” said Mothi.
“—nor one to seek vengeance for slights—”
“Ha!” said Veethar.
“—but this…this woman, this Tisir, has more than earned my disaffection centuries ago!”
“And you can’t get over it?” asked Jane in a mild tone. “You can’t let it go?”
“That is not my nature,” Althyof said in a calmer tone.
“So, you do hold grudges?” asked Mothi with a mischievous glint in his eye.
Althyof turned away, but not before I caught a touch of amusement in his eye. “Where is he? Let’s find Luka and get this thing done.”
Kuhntul smiled at his back. “Shall I lead, Tyeldnir, or would you rather follow his slowth?”
“Lead on. As we walk, tell me how we can rescue Hel from Owraythu’s realm. I have a feeling that is the coin we will need to buy Luka’s cooperation.”
“A hammer to the temple always worked in the past,” said Meuhlnir.
Kuhntul grinned and started walking. “We should consider not beating his brains out yet. He may be useful in the near future.”
“Why is that?” asked Jane. “What in the world could he do that we couldn’t?”
“He’s got a mischievous twist of mind,” said Kuhntul in a tone of voice that almost sounded wistful.
“That’s saying a lot coming from you,” murmured Althyof.
“When he desires it, that twist can be bent to a particularly gifted form of military strategy.”
Althyof opened his mouth to reply, but I sighed and shook my head. “The rescue?”
Kuhntul let her gaze slide lazily from Althyof’s face to my own. “Yes. You’ve told me the slowth of the Three Maids differs from your own. Do they also differ from the slowth of the matterstream manifestations of the Plauinn?”
“That I don’t know. We met Bikkir when we traveled back to Isi’s time, but he appeared as a human.”
“Ah. His dreamslice reflection.”
“I’m not sure…I asked him, but he wouldn’t answer—said the question lacked cohesion. I don’t have a firm grasp on how Isi trapped him in the first place. Isi said it resulted from a failed experiment. Maybe they pulled him forward in time…maybe that was his matterstream manifestation from a time before the First War.”
“What’s the difference between a dreamslice refraction and a matterstream whatsit?” asked Sig.
“The matterstream manifestation is the universe in which you live, young Sig,” said Kuhntul. “In it, the normal rules apply—physical properties are as you expect them to be. The dreamslice reflection is harder to explain, but think of it this way: suppose everything in the physical universe has a mirror somewhere else—”
“This underverse that the Plauinn inhabit.”
“From your point of view, yes.”
“From our point of view?” I asked.
Kuhntul nodded. “Yes. To the Plauinn, the underverse is the matterstream manifestation, and your reality is the dreamslice reflection.”
“And you? Which is your matterstream manifestation?”
She looked at me for a moment. “I’m not sure how to answer that question.”
“Try,” said Jane.
Kuhntul slowed to a stop. She put her hand to her chin and stared off into the distance. “I… It is a difficult…” She shook her head. “I don’t know the answer, but my matterstream manifestation is close to your own, if it is different at all.”
“You don’t come from the underverse?”
She shook her head. “No, I…” She glanced away. “I came to this matterstream through the underverse, but—”
“By traveling through a proo?” I asked, thinking of the technique she’d taught me of opening my own preer and how Haymtatlr couldn’t detect them.
She nodded slowly. “But this won’t help us, and we should table my origin until a later time.”
I shrugged.
“Which brings us to timeslices,” she said to Sig. “Think of timeslices as ‘orientations’ of the matterstream manifestations. Or, to put it another way, each of us has a timeslice unique to ourselves, each stathur also has its own timeslice, as does the universe as a whole.”
“And this underverse?”
Kuhntul nodded.
Frikka’s eyes lit up. “So that is why uhrluhk may change!”
Kuhntul smiled. “Yes, my old friend.”
“I don’t get it at all,” said Jane.
“Each person has their own timeslice! When his uhrluhk changes, only those timeslices that interact with his own are affected. That’s why Hank could change what happened to Kuthbyuhrn and Kyellroona without destroying everything.” Frikka smiled and nearly danced with excitement.
“Yes,” said Kuhntul. “And his manipulation of their timeslices changed what happened to your own timeslices—but only enough so that what happened would make sense to you.”
“But I don’t remember it any other way!”
“No. Because timeslices follow a curious path when changed. They loopback to the place of divergence. Hank remembers the previous timeslice because he is the one who enacted the change—he holds both sets of memories, because he experienced the first, then changed it and experienced the second. Since you were part of the matterstream manifestation which he changed, you have no memory of the first set of events.”
“Thanks for clearing that up for me,” muttered Jane. “If it makes sense to Hank and Frikka they can try to explain it another time.”
“Fair enough,” said Kuhntul.
“So…”
“Yes, Hank?”
“Before, you told me you have multiple sets of memories. Did you—”
“We should get moving,” said Kuhntul briskly. “Luka is growing restless.”
“Okay,” I said,
my gaze flicking from the sudden tenseness of her shoulders, to the set of her jaw, to her eyes, which she quickly averted.
“You never told me if the Maids’ slowthar differ from those of the Plauinn’s matterstream manifestations,” she said without looking up.
“I don’t know. The few times I visited the Plauinn in the underverse, I didn’t notice any slowthar at all.”
“Interesting,” said Kuhntul.
“When you or Bikkir gave me the ability to perceive these slowthar, at first, it was like sensory overload, but I got acclimated. I have to focus on them to even see them now, and with all the new things flying at me in my interactions with the Plauinn in the underverse, I didn’t pay attention to their slowthar, but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“Ah. It would be better if we knew for certain.”
“Wait a minute…when I experience someone else’s memories…”
“Yes, Tyeldnir?” Kuhntul asked.
Something turned over in my mind. “That’s dreamslice, right?”
“Yes, as with any other experience in the realm of the psychic.”
“Then when I took Luka to visit Owraythu’s realm…when she noticed us, we were—”
“When she what?” screeched Kuhntul. “Tyeldnir, what have you done?” Her face jumped and twitched with agitation.
“I took Luka into my memories, so he could see that I wasn’t responsible for Hel’s captivity. Inside memories, I can…I don’t know what to call it…I can stop the flow of the memory, freeze everything in place. I did that, or tried to, in Owraythu’s realm, and she sensed the manipulation somehow.”
“Of course she did! Remember that what is dreamslice to us is matterstream to them. From her perspective, you intruded on her reality and stopped the flow of time!”
“I… I didn’t understand—”
Kuhntul sighed. “How could you?” She shook her head. “I wish I’d known of this memory traveling trick, but what’s done is done.” She forced a smile to her lips. “It’s no matter. We will adapt.” She turned and began walking.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 133