Chapter Two: Webs Within Webs

Huiln reeled, hitting the post that divided the entry way, then reached for the blade concealed in his cloak.

"Let me guess," said the goblin. "You used me as a beast of burden by shrinking, then resting in the folds of my clothes."

"You're such an active goblin that I wouldn't call it rest. Moreover, you've been overly concerned about your appearance since meeting that elf, and each time you smooth out and tuck in your garments, you flatten my makeshift hammocks in the folds. But yes, you know me well."

"Well enough. What are you hiding from?"

"I could ask you the same. Don't you have a message to deliver?"

"True enough. For the moment, I was hiding from you. And I have two scrolls, if you'll recall the one written in Culiliana's hand."

"Who's that? Teuren's handmaiden?"

"She might have been a hundred years ago."

"You mean the artifact I found on Ielnarona. Did you translate it?"

"No need. I knew what it said at first glance."

"Fool of a goblin--" The giantess clawed Huiln's hood, winding it around the misshapen mash of dog's paw and spider's foreleg that was her left hand, then rammed him into the post so hard that his jaw rattled. "--to think that you could deceive me without cost." Though the goblin squinted from the pain, and a tear rolled down his cheek, he smiled into Eurilda's face.

"Did you forget where you are?", he asked, glancing over Eurilda's shoulder at the Treikondant Cerund, who stepped away from the queue and drew their swords. The giantess dropped Huiln roughly as she turned to face them, and the elven guardians, in place of visors, lowered magnificent hinged masks, each as distinctive as a coat of arms: a tortuously twisted smile, with a beard of angel's wings fanning its metallic cheeks; a moue more solemn than a priest in prayer; the visage of a wolf, its ornately etched fur painted gray.

When the wolf-masked guardian spoke, her voice was not muffled, as you would expect, but clearer and louder, as if the mask amplified it: "Eurilda of Uenarak, you will come with us."

"I will not. My dear friend Huiln got an invitation from an elven lord. Where's my invitation?"

"I can oblige you if you wish. The High Tzhurarkh himself signed this warrant, which I can implement on my own authority, if you haven't the grace to do as he bids."

"Are we at auction? Fine. Whatever the High Tzhurarkh bid, I'll add a krupek." To add theater to her insolence, the giantess produced one of the goblin coppers from her pouch, flipped it at the guardians, and muttered arcane syllables which expanded the coin to the size of a wagon wheel. It screeched where it struck their leader's breastplate, bowling her and two others over, then smacked the floor with a long shaking clatter. This left the two Treikondant Cerund on either end, one of which lifted his sword, while the guardian that flanked the other side, after being grazed by the gigantic coin's rim, intoned his own magical reply, when Eurilda vanished from sight.

The wolf-masked guardian picked herself up, helped her comrade off the floor, straightened her slightly disheveled armor, and then examined the grains of the floor and the crevices in the stone wall for any sign of the sorceress.

Thinking Eurilda concealed herself in the folds of his clothes, Huiln tried to brush her away like a crumb. Agitated by the thought of the miniature sorceress clinging to him, he did not hear the wolf-masked leader until she raised her voice to repeat herself, "can you understand me, Nahurian? Take off your clothes."

"What...why?"

"Take off your clothes," she repeated, imperiously, waving her sword at him and then the ground to underscore the point. Huiln did not like his chances at escape, either in the Quront Sabata or through the Kuln gate, neither of which he knew well, so he first divested himself of his cloak.

"Don't bother folding it," ordered the wolf-masked Treikondant Cerund. "Just pile it on the floor." After his cloak, Huiln removed his shirt; while taking off his trousers, he palmed the square-folded letters in his pocket. "That's enough," she said, and when white hot fire streamed from her palm onto his best traveling clothes, he took two steps back.

"That was unnecessary," said Huiln, seething as his eyes watered from the smoke. "What if she wasn't there? Isn't cobori about identifying? Well, you should have identified that she was there before you torched my clothes." Huiln scowled, then continued, "and are you going to follow suit? More hiding places for a mite-sized sorceress are in your enameled armor than in my best cloak."

"Why would you know anything about cobori," said the wolf-masked guardian, ignoring the goblin's suggestion that the Treikondant Cerund should strip.

"Have you seen this library?", said Huiln, unwilling to give up his only source on this world of aggressive snobs. His ocher skin reddened, and his honor was on fire, but if he could keep his cool, at least he wouldn't lose his self-respect.

"Library?" scoffed the Treikondant Cerund, "This is Quront Sabata."

"Thank you for that. My goblin brain often—and now literally—forgets its place. Nonetheless..."

"Yes?" she challenged him.

"...it looks like a library," he continued.

"If similarities were equivalencies, we would be giants and all flesh would be food."

"Eurilda is many things. Perhaps was," he said, and seeing that the ashes of his clothes had already cooled, he picked out the ruined slag of his short sword. It was unsalvageable; even the amethyst in the pommel was scorched black by the magical flames. "But she is, or was, no cannibal. Not to my knowledge, which is greater than you admit."

Huiln was perfectly fluent while reading Alfyrian, but had only heard it a few times, so only understood every other word of her order to search adjoining rooms and passages. "Before you get lost in your search," said Huiln, "will I be remunerated for my troubles? I cannot answer Lord Azuri's invitation in my undergarments."

The wolf-masked Treikondant Cerund turned to the one masked with a winged, toothsome, smile and issued a monotone order so rapid that Huiln did not understand one word. Then she looked down on the goblin. "Kejuro will take you to Kuln, where you may charge what you wish to Quront Sabata."

"Thank you," said Huiln, "but don't send me shopping without pants." He tried to laugh deferentially, but finding it not in him, turned the strained sound into clearing his throat.

Kejuro said, "I will accommodate him, Ler Gilaila," removed the cape strung to his breastplate, then wrapped it around the goblin. The cape was more of a cloak when draped around Huiln. It smelled unpleasantly of Kejuro's pomade, sweat and armor oil.

"This is ridiculous," said Huiln, holding the makeshift garment up with both hands. "Well, I see no reason ever to return to Kuln. And probably Alfyria for that matter."

"Kejuro," said Ler Gilaila, "buy our Nahurian friend such ostentatious attire that he makes the impression upon leaving Kuln that he wished to make upon his arrival."

Huiln had an equally sarcastic answer for her, but saved his breath. This Ler Gilaila—Ler signifying either a captain, or a petty lordling's heir—was only a functionary, promoted through aping the conservative prejudices of the ruling class. Telling her how he felt wouldn't change her mind or make him feel better, and his favorite sword and cloak would still be slag and char respectively.

At this point, Huiln's sole satisfaction was imagining Eurilda's cremation. Kejuro's mind moved in similarly morbid directions, it seemed, for his answer was "As you wish, Ler Gilaila. The Nahurian's finery will rival a Tzhurarkh's funeral."

When her subordinates left to widen their search, Ler Gilaila turned to the queue, most of which had already left their place in the line to get a better view of Eurilda's incineration and Huiln's humiliation. Kuteiel ghereo nel trukot tendga, Huiln remembered from a book of proverbs: a line is a chrysalis for a mob. When Ler Gilaila announced, "The Kuln gate is closed. Re-petition tomorrow," the patrons, as one, shouted and gestured their profane displeasure, and in this din Kejuro and Huiln passed through the Kuln gate.

Not for the first time, Huiln thought, the elves betrayed a problem with their nomenclature, for the gates looked nothing like gates, but simple double doorways, though the doors were iron banded hardwood, and each had five large deadbolts the size of spear-points. When he looked through the open Kuln gate, Huiln's eyes watered, then blurred, then crossed, so that he had to avert his gaze from the sight of cities layered on cities: not only the silhouette of what must be the enormous foundations of two gigantic Julaban buildings, but bolder outlines superimposed on rows of humbler stone structures, and moreover, an oppressive haze doubled this city in the forefront. While he could see many elves, their ghostly outlines appeared painted onto the scene before him.

"How does it work?" asked Huiln.

When Kejuro's impassive golden mask looked down, the goblin's spine chilled, as the wide, toothsome smile now seemed a mocking sneer. Huiln admired the craftsmanship of the frightful leer, which was no doubt as much an asset in peace as in war, as no one would wish to oppose such an assured, toothsome grin. Though he still wanted an answer, Huiln regretted his question at once, as it must have sounded stupid to one who passed through these doors habitually.

"In here," Kejuro's voice boomed, "is Quront Sabata; out there, it is hard to say. If we only walked on soil when we stepped through that door, we would find ourselves in Julaba, of course; but as this is a path of light, it opens on Kuln." It was as if the Treikondant Cerund's mask wasn't there, or was as sheer as a veil, for Kejuro's voice filled the room.

"I don't know that phrase--'path of light.' What does that mean?"

"I'm no Tzhurarkh, to be talking in circles. I mean what I say."

"'Path of light' is meaningless."

"Fool of a goblin," said Kejuro, "you always walk on light. It's as if you jumped in an ocean and denied being wet. Open your eyes."

The heat of Kuln roared when the gate opened. The chromatic radiation of the sunless Abyss crackled in a grumbling sky, and filament-thin heat lightning sparked from the Elven World to meet it. Heavy, dark, clouds hung, but no rain fell, and the air was so parched that in minutes, the goblin's hands and face felt dry as paper. While countless Alfyrians crowded the streets of this simmering city, the foot and carriage traffic was not oppressive, as an equal number sat or reclined under obnoxiously enormous parasols. Though it still wasn't homey to the goblin, whose world had nothing but single story dwellings and subterranean structures, the small houses of Kuln cast little shade, and within minutes Huiln's baked-dry skin was then sweat-drenched, despite the fact that he was a naked goblin under nothing but a cloak.

Huiln asked, "that twelve hours doesn't apply to us, does it?" They passed a cafe where elves, sitting at iron bistro tables topped by white parasols, sipped from drinks tinted blue, gold, or green, and nibbled from the tasteless, paper-white, pastries that Cyhari believed so delightful.

"No," said Kejuro. "But an hour in Kuln is punishment enough. There are clothiers this way, Nahurian; if we hurry, we can return in half an hour. Nahurian?" The Alfyrian guardian yelled after Huiln, who ran as fast as he could while holding his makeshift garment up with both hands.

And there it was. Though Cyhari had told him about it, the fact of the goblin restaurant's existence on Alfyria seemed too good to be true as he stood at the counter and dropped one end of the cape to free a hand for perusing the menu. Though it was little bigger than a shack, with only two tables and counter service, it was packed with a world of homey aromas: the Nahurian spice mix itrusa, the redolent herb kiltola sauteed in oil, and even the fresh and sweet smell of the goblin fruit putara. Could putara be grown here on this unfriendly world, Huiln wondered, or was it imported at great cost through the Abyss? And if putara was grown on Alfyria, would the plant become a monstrous variant, like the other wonder of this restaurant, the aproned goblin that must have stood a foot taller than any goblin that had ever existed? Not only was this young goblin tall, he was gangling, exhibiting a nearly skeletal physique which he had never seen on any Nahurian goblin. While goblins were a squat and muscular race, this specimen was neither, but tall and gangly, and moreover, he was home to the third wonder of this Nahurian restaurant, a monolithic wart on the side of his nose, exactly the thing Huiln didn't want to see on a food worker.

"Nahurian," said Kejuro, stepping into the restaurant, "you're indecent."

Huiln paid no notice and placed his order: "two uichorn soups with extra dumplings, one to go; one trghantu bowl, make that two...no, neither are to go; four mini cauldron breads; and a flagon of wine. No, not the Nahurian stuff, give me Cuvaernian. Charge it all to Quront Sabata—I'm with him." Here the goblin indicated his overly decorated acquaintance.

"Ler Gilaila said nothing of this."

"Sit and eat with me," said Huiln, sitting at one of the long benches flanking one of two wooden tables.

"It's too hot in here," said Kejuro, but sat across from Huiln and removed his helm. Sweat ran down his nose and cheeks into his glistening beard, and beaded on the ruby-red hair stuck to his scalp. Huiln nearly laughed to see that under the mask's toothsome smile the Treikondant Cerund's own face, while sporting a mouthful of oversized teeth and cauliflower ears enlarged by too many brawls, was morose and disapproving; like an uncomfortably long joke told by an idiot, the way the mask was both a similarity and contradiction was a hilarious payoff that brought the frustrated goblin sweet relief.

When a robust goblin woman exited the kitchen, bearing Huiln's order, the door swung in and out, revealing a glimpse of a half dozen cauldrons suspended over a fiery stove, and a dozen pots resting on an iron grill. Though the goblin had more than a passing resemblance to one who was in his class of acolytes many years ago, Huiln was so hungry that he cut and speared a slice of trghantu before the server turned her back. If this heavyset goblin woman was his old friend, living in Kuln and working in kitchen heat had not been kind to her, for she now looked much older than Huiln.

"These are trghantu bowls," said Huiln, carefully removing the lids. Steam wafted upwards, bearing the herbed scent of grilled vegetables and the piquant smell of fried cheese.

"It smells very savory," the Alfyrian said doubtfully. "The spices are at war."

Huiln smiled as he relished the aroma. "No doubt to your refined, elvish, palette, it is more savage than savory, and the spices are raging, bare-knuckled, brutes. Pick it apart at your leisure—later. Let's enjoy it while it's hot." What looked to be roasted flesh on cooked grains instead proved to be riced vegetables toasted in oil, and upon that, the cutlet known as trghantu, a dense cheese curd with a meaty texture, seasoned with citrus and herbs. Huiln last dined on Trghantu twenty years ago, when he accompanied Lord Hwarn on a business trip to Kheire, Kreona's trade rival on Nahure, where trghantu was the staple dish.

"Thank you," said Kejuro after his first bite, though it was only followed by a few more.

"Are you going to eat that?" Huiln didn't wait for a response before stabbing the half-eaten trghantu, which he bit in half before putting the rest on his plate.

When the trghantu was finished, Huiln cupped his uichorn soup bowl, then drank it as if it was the most intoxicating grog in the Five Worlds. When Kejuro drummed his fingers, Huiln said, "I'm sorry I didn't get you any. The other soup is for my friend."

Kejuro said, "I've eaten my fill."

"Any room for booze?" Huiln smiled broadly, cracked the wax stopper on the bottle and poured himself a glass. "No? That's too bad." He sipped the wine, which proved a competent vintage.

"Don't speak for me," growled Kejuro. "Pour me a glass. Spirits are a hobby of mine, and I've never had that label." When he downed a generous glass of Cuvaernian like water, Huiln knew the Alfyrian was no connoisseur.

"I should caution you that it's very strong," Huiln said, after the elf's second glass. "We drank this when Khyte took me to Hravak to hammer out a deal with a gold-hungry merchant named Sarin Gelf. While the merchant would later prove neither gold-hungry, nor Hravakian, and his name was an alias, on that occasion he demonstrated a strong stomach for booze, and we got stinking drunk hammering out our terms. I'm told that I insulted so many Cuvaernians that I'm lucky I woke up without two black eyes."

"Are you getting me drunk?" asked Kejuro.

"Why would I do that." laughed Huiln. "I'm wearing nothing but underwear and a cape, and I need you to buy me new clothes." After the elf drank his third glass, Huiln said, "and it isn't like you'd get drunk on only two glasses."

"You just poured my third," said Kejuro. "We should go."

"But you haven't told me how you like it," said Huiln. "I was curious as to the opinion of a connoisseur."

"It's a passable goblin wine."

"Cuvaerni is on Hravak," said Huiln.

"What was that?"

"This isn't a goblin label."

"Oh, it's made by humans. It's respectable, I suppose."

"You're quite the connoisseur if your judgment improved the wine from passable to respectable."

"I don't follow," said Kejuro.

"Between passable and respectable there's a world of difference," said Huiln. "I believe it's the Goblin World."

"Are you insulting me?"

"Not unless you're from Nahure. But that would be bigotry." When Huiln grabbed the extra uichorn soup, he struggled to hold the cape up with the other hand.

"Let me help you, Nahurian," said Kejuro, taking the bag. "And let's finish your shopping before mid-day, unless you want to know what that half-soured wine feels like." They headed down a thoroughfare congested with indolent Alfyrians. Due to the great heat, many of the businesses' doors were open; a baker lay outside with his patrons, his oven still and ash black, but the wine importer next to him had a steady stream of customers seeking relief where they could find it.

"I hate that wine too, though it's great for getting drunk," said Huiln, looking at the many superior labels on the shelves inside. For a moment they couldn't hear each other over the noise of a public bath, which was packed with so many elves that it was surely hotter and more humid in the gray waters. The fetid smell of rank bodies stuck to them for a block until it was blotted out by the smell of feces, dry hay, and animal hair that told Huiln a stable was near.

As a boy, Huiln spent more time playing in House Hwarn's ordure-spattered stables than he ought, so that the smell of manure made him homesick, though the stable's bouquet was tainted with unknown odors. Then he saw the stable's tenants. Just as the elves of Alfyria seemed similar to the humans of Hravak, the stabled mounts seemed similar to the horses of the human world, until peculiar details disclosed their true nature. Not only did their eyes move independently like the bird in the park, but their hooves left circular tracks like the bottom of a post in the stable dirt, and when an elf returned for his steed, their oddest trait was demonstrated. As the gracefully double-jointed steed walked backward down the street, its pupils eerily pointed behind it as well, so that for a moment the beast seemed to have eyes in the back of its head, and its rider was not concerned in the slightest by his steed's unusual facing, as if he had just spurred it to go backwards two hundred feet intentionally.

Though Huiln had a great many questions, he was loath to ask Kejuro, who had proved himself a snobbish brute.

As the day grew hotter and drier, even the negligible building shade became crowded, and unlucky souls, unable to find a shady spot, laid down where they could and baked in the light of the Abyss, until carriages had to be steered carefully through the bodies by their dismounted drivers, and those walking, like Kejuro and Huiln, were accosted by beggars two or three times a block.

"Earlier," said Huiln, "I was objecting to the theater of your politeness, that puts on more of a sham where humans are concerned than for goblins."

"Is that what you think?" laughed the elf. "I hate everyone. In fact, I hate humans more than anyone."

"I'm sure you do. Forget I said anything," said Huiln.

"As you wish," said Kejuro.

What Huiln wished was to be properly fitted by a tailor, but Kejuro refused, saying they had taken too long already, and took the goblin to an importer who had an excess of product—pants, shirts, shoes, undergarments, belts, jackets, hosiery, cravats, pajama wear, cloaks, and capes, as well as the very best evening attire—crammed into a store slightly longer than the Nahurian restaurant, so that the smell of oiled leathers and laundered fabrics was overpowering in the torrid heat. Huiln would have liked to have options at market if he wasn't sweltering, and Kejuro wasn't pacing the floor, and if it wasn't so difficult to dig through the heaped clothing one-handed while holding up the cloak.

"I like this one," said Huiln of a small black outfit with red stitching. In truth, the style—slacks, shirt, vest, and jacket—seemed overdressed and barely suited the goblin, who considered himself a rugged adventurer, though he admitted that the stifling hot establishment had conquered him, and he didn't want to scrounge for clothes any more. Moreover, the clerk neither offered to help sort through the piles and wooden bins, nor offered any pleasantry at all, not even a greeting, but instead, every few seconds, mopped his face with a balled-up shirt. So it was with a profound sense of settling that Huiln accepted the unfashionably red-stitched ensemble, as it was the first thing he found that fit him and he liked the feel of the soft, satiny, fabric.

"That's stylish—for a boy," said Kejuro.

"Considering elves aren't made to look like me, on Alfyria my chances are slim of finding fashionable clothing without consulting a tailor. Since you're denying me that indulgence, what choice do I have?" said Huiln. "Is it really that obvious?"

"That you're short?", asked Kejuro, chuckling.

"No," snorted Huiln, "that I'm wearing children's clothes."

"Not really," said the elf, "It's a dark suit." When Kejuro looked away and smirked, Huiln knew this outfit would cause some embarrassment, but as it was likely that the Spider-God intended him to wear this ensemble to satisfy her perverse sense of humor, it would be the only option that would fit. So there was no reason for him to suffer the discomfort of smothering while sifting through the too-tall hot heaps of fabric for another minute.

When Kejuro charged the clothes to the Quront Sabata, the clerk looked up from his sweltering stupor, and then recognizing the Treikondant Cerund raiment, had the astonished goodwill of one that discovers they entertained royalty. "Thank you, Ler! Your son will enjoy these. Would you like them boxed and wrapped?"

"I'm no Ler, and this goblin is not my son." In answer, the clerk folded, bagged, and handed the clothes to Huiln without so much as a smile.

"Thank you," Huiln said, but the clerk was already walking away.

"Back to Quront Sabata," said Kejuro. When they stepped out into the street, they found it much cooler, not only in comparsion to the stuffy clothing store, but because gray, rainless, clouds had rolled over the city. Though Huiln had hoped to smell good Nahurian food again before returning to the Quront Sabata, Kejuro chose another route, through a residential district of two-story domed towers. While each were identical in structure, their stones had aged and mortar had cracked similarly as well, making each of the towers an uncanny mirror of its neighbor. Looking at a shared laundry line strung between two towers' windows, Huiln's loathing for the elves was incensed. Even Alfyrian peasants live in towers, he thought to himself.

The strip of towers ended in a park; unlike the parks on other worlds, there were few trees and shrubs, but instead many pools of pure water, guarded by broken statues and circled by stone benches.

Huiln said, "we both know these clothes barely suit me, but since they're passable, I won't gripe." The goblin paused. "But you can't skimp when replacing my sword."

"You want the Treikondant Cerund, guardians of Quront Sabata, the bulwark of cobori in all Alfyria, to buy you a blade?"

"Nurhen kevari nil covoto, tremana di esca amalna. 'In replacing what was destroyed, the honor of friends is satisfied.' I'll admit it was no heirloom weapon. The smith was likely drunk when he made the poorly-tempered, dull blade. But as it was reassuring to know I had a sword on your unfriendly world, it held practical value, and as my friend bought it for me when we still called each other friends, it held sentimental value."

"Unfriendly we may be, but can you call us savage? Is your life at risk here, on the most civilized of The Five Worlds?"

Huiln laughed until he choked, and after taking a breath, he laughed some more. "Alfyrians can't make a meal I'd feed to my beasts and are an afterthought to their own architects. Alfyria is a wonder, and deserving of much praise, but I wouldn't call a world inhospitable to its people civilized."

Kejuro glowered. "even if your vilification of my world is true, it does not follow that poor cooking and austere buildings contribute to poor safety." The tall armored elf stopped before a short, impressively ugly statue, not made of stone like the other sculptures, but bronze that grayed with age. Realizing who was depicted, Huiln snorted, then thought it might be fun to play dumb.

"Who's this ugly unfortunate? I'm sorry—is this memorial to your mother?"

Kejuro ignored him, and said, "Since you think so little of us, I wanted to show you the goblin we once admired." The statue portrayed an elderly goblin's wrinkled face and stooped posture so realistically that for a moment Huiln was concerned for the statue's health.

Clutching the statue's stone sleeve was a tiny bird not unlike the feathered avians of the Human World, though just as elves resembled humans stretched until they forgot their original shape, this avian looked tweaked as well. As Huiln counted five thorny bumps between its wings, one eye pivoted toward him, while the other stared forward, and these independent eyes unerved him. "Your birds have two tails," remarked Huiln.

"Goblins state the obvious," said Kejuro. "but still get it wrong. All of our animals have two tails, but a vestigial third tail lays under our birds' spiky ridge. Don't be offended. To us, Luenara's awe-inspiring intelligence in a goblin was as unusual as two-tailed animals are for you."

It rankled Huiln that the elf's insults were less indirect, for it meant Kejuro believed he had the goblin's measure, and it was not a flattering assessment. "Wise Luenara, who wasn't so awe-inspiring that you shared kinulcra with her, and whom you've bumped, from her unforgettable role in defeating the arguments of Tzupontila, to this dilapidated statue garden."

"Years ago, this was a beautiful neighborhood."

"Not so beautiful that its inhabitants earned any kinulcra either, so that they had the time to improve themselves and their neighborhood. Not so beautiful that you erected a statue to Tzupontila here as well, though it was their lively debate that has made them famous for hundreds of years. And that you venerate our greatest philosopher is hardly surprising, since that goblin was the elves' greatest philosophical treasure as well."

"Let's return to Quront Sabata." The elf didn't wait this time, but walked back the way they came.

Huiln considered striking off on his own to buy a sword, but decided against it, as he would have to melt his Nahurian coins for the metal value to buy from smiths or weapon merchants of unknown character and reputation. Even the thought of getting directions from impolite and affected Alfyrians repelled him. Lastly, if Huiln split from his elven escort, he couldn't be certain to return through the closed Kuln gate in a timely fashion, and this put at risk Azuri's offer of hospitality. Huiln resigned himself to seek recompense for his sword at the earliest opportunity and followed Kejuro.

As they approached the Quront Sabata, Huiln realized that he had missed the obvious when passing through Kuln's gate. Distracted by his near-nakedness, and the inadequacies of Kejuro's cape, he hadn't noticed that the Quront Sabata in Kuln was not only the double of the one in Julaba, it was its twin. That is, it was not a double seen at a different angle, as both his perspective and the image of the elven bookstore seemed identical. Perhaps his judgment was lulled by the preconception that buildings should look the same upon departure as they did upon arrival. Now Huiln pondered the impossibility of this—a single foundation could not be laid in multiple sites, no matter how magic-savvy the architects.

Huiln looked up to see an open-air balcony bridge where he had taken many study breaks. He liked to lean on its rail to consider the Alfyrian lives passing below, not considering at the time that the alley underneath was in Kuln. Or was it? If Huiln entered in Julaba, walked to the bridge, and waved to Kejuro in Kuln, were either truly seeing the other? Which one was a shadow cast by the Quront Sabata, mimicking what took place in the projected location? And if the Quront Sabata interpreted distant events, could its windows lie?

Luenara told Tzupontila that if one believed in the gods, it followed that mortals were phantoms playing for the gods' amusement and glorification; moreover, if these gods ordered all things, then deception—starting with the lie that was free will—was the fundamental truth. King Yacudo of Nahure had ordered the philosopher's ostracization for this ghoulish observation, and this silent treatment, obeyed at a global level, had preceded her self-exile to the Elven World, where her metaphysical pessimism was appreciated.

At the Kuln door, nine armored Treikondant Cerund stood at ease, their gauntlets at rest on the crossbars of massive greatswords that bit the ground. Kejuro lowered his mask, which, with its fan-like ears and toothsome smile, Huiln now thought of as a backup face for the wintry Alfyrian, like the two eyelids of serpents; the guardians likewise lowered their masks and bowed their heads as they made way and opened the doors, releasing a noxious-smelling steam.

The queue was still closed, and the gate room was empty except for a sole custodian swabbing with a black staff, the tip of which glowed yellow. Though the magical stick never touched the floor, where its light hovered muddy boot prints vanished, the foul-smelling steam issued, and the stones were polished. Even the janitor turned a baleful eye on Huiln, as if he could blast the goblin from existence as easily as the grime, and offered not a single word by way of greeting.

Huiln's clothes echoed as they scrunched; a loose fit in some places and bunching up in others, the discomfort of clothes better suited for a spoiled elf boy woke him to his task. He had not come to lose himself in the Quront Sabata and be disparaged by its rude custodians. With Eurilda either persona non grata or dead, nothing barred him from an audience with the High Tzhurarkh; nothing except having no repute on Alfyria. Not that being a nonentity wasn't preferable to being a clown; if the day's events became the subject of courtly gossip, he would quickly become an infamous joke to the elves. And if Azuri's humiliating dishonor was also well-rumored, Azuri may not have the influence Huiln needed to gain the elf monarch's attention.

"There's no need to thank me," said Kejuro, as Huiln turned towards the stairs.

"I wouldn't dream of it," said Huiln, not pausing his ascent

"Next time, leave your sword on Nahure," Kejuro called, before leaving Huiln to contemplate the execrable manners of Alfyrians. Only when he was at the top of the first flight did Huiln realize that Azuri's invitation, and its map, burned with his traveling clothes.

As Kejuro's stiff and stately stride was much longer than Huiln's, the goblin struggled to catch up. "Our business is at an end," said Kejuro, without deigning to glance at Huiln.

"I'm also in a rush to conclude it," scowled Huiln. "Where is Cyhari at this hour?"

"Cyhari gon-Azuri gont-Czebele?"

"Is there another Cyhari in the Treikondant Cerund?"

"No," admitted the elf. "But imprecise is impolite, as the saying goes."

Now he cares about being polite, thought Huiln. "I agree. So don't change the subject. Where is she?"

"Dusting the upper stacks. Or so I am told."

"What does that mean?" asked Huiln.

"This simple task has occupied her for the better part of two weeks."

"What else could she be doing?"

"The Treikondant Cerund have many duties."

As it was past time to adopt elvish manners, Huiln left without a word of thanks.

Huiln found the stairwell a few shades darker than it had been moments before. When the infernal radiance of the Abyss rolled back into impenetrable night, the halls of the Quront Sabata glowed green from ensconced illuminated rods. Huiln stopped on the balcony bridge, where the diaphanous image of Kuln lay, reflecting Julaba's night sky like placid water, mixed with the crackling Abyss light still smoldering in distant Kuln. He stared not into a real place, but at a twilight transition, not only between day and night, but between Kuln and Julaba, and when he blinked, his eyelid sent a ripple through the flickering image. While his curiosity on the manner wasn't satisfied, he climbed the stairs to the upper stacks. Not for the first time, Huiln thanked the Three that he could contemplate such miracles, as with the exception of Lord Hwarn, his kin would have clung to the walkway in the throes of goblin acrophobia.

However, this was the first time Huiln's thanks were answered. Not unlike the twilight flicker that translated Kuln into Julaba, another shudder erased steps, walkway, balcony, alley, Quront Sabata, and then all of Alfyria. He walked in darkness, a tangible shadow that shivered as he stepped forward. And all about him was the tightly-drawn skein of webs; in his gluttony for books, he had forgotten his earlier glimpse of these webs.

The webs pulsed as a hulking shadow crept over them. When the constant mutter of the thrumming webs started to sound like babbling, Huiln's skin crawled, and when syllables coalesced, to seep from chaos into meaning, his teeth set on edge and his spine clenched, as if gripped like a piece of chalk and ground down on the darkness. And as he understood what was said, he was shook again by the mind-numbing understanding that he was in the presence of the Spider-God.

"Die to live. Kill to know oblivion. Serve to rule. Forget to become. Spin or be spun." The honeyed, melodic voice jarred with the Spider God's shadowy vastness, which seemed more colossal ink blot than monstrosity. Though this beguiling litany continued, Huiln was still dizzy from the initial opposites that the Spider God bound together, and he missed many more dark pairings. Huiln had read sophists that attempted to marry dichotomies like this, and scorned the pretentious that quoted them, but it was easier to mock those parrots than doubt an overshadowing god.

"Who are you?" asked Huiln. When a laugh drummed the shadows, the webs quivered.

"Release me," bade Huiln. The laughing ceased as the webs drew taut, and the dark thing shuffled towards him.

"Feed the hunger." The webs parted before the dark god, then sealed without a trace of its passage. It loomed on legs as thick as a horse's but three times as long, and its body, less black than gray, was as thick as a tower. Looking up, Huiln expected mandibles and a multitude of eyes, and saw instead The Five Worlds circling the radiance of the Abyss. But the two Worlds that served as its eyes—Ielnarona and Alfyria—were red-rimmed and their lands cracked, and the World below, Uenarak, was breached by a stream of monstrous laughter that set its coarse gray hairs shivering.

Huiln stared, eyes agog and mouth agape, at the elder sister in the goblin trinity, Lyspera, Thief of Worlds—or as much of her that he could see and comprehend, for not only was she much bigger than he could see in a single glance, but no doubt the reality of her was concealed, and too terrifying for a mortal, even a mad goblin, to behold. And while his first thought was holy dread, which was equally proper whether this was the god or her avatar, his second thought was that if he could speak with impunity, he would give her an earful. Without a verse of praise to sing or a sword to wave, however, he could neither venerate nor defy her as she deserved.

The moment Huiln thought of raising his voice to the God of the Abyss, webs ensnared his hands, as if his irreligious thoughts touched a trip-web invisible to unbelievers. But as her line coiled around him, he glimpsed through the silky shadows, as if they were ghostly apparitions, the Quront Sabata's shelves. And when the webs drew snug, and he was completely encased in the divine spider-silk, the spectral images of the Quront Sabata solidified. Somehow, in being wrapped, he had escaped, though whether into reality or more mad fantasy he could not say. He rested his hand on the wall to still his pummeling heart, and to persuade himself that he was truly there,.but while the stone was satisfyingly unyielding and cold, the drabness of it seemed a mere shroud concealing its unreality. The callous randomness and dark whimsy of his recent past would be more sensible if he had always hung dreaming in Lyspera's webs.

Huiln cursed but admired the Spider God, who in one vision, had bestowed not only a revelation that mystics would covet, but a cruel trick, so he would never again act without suspecting he was dreaming, or pushing and pulling against his own terrors. The solipsistic armor of fear, fear he was still in her webs, would protect every evil deed with the idea that it was meaningless, and infect every heroic deed with the idea that it was vanity at worst, and wish-fulfillment at best. But the bubble was easily burst, Huiln told himself, in that the Spider God was unlikely to rate a bauble like him as important as the stolen Worlds in her jewelry box. He must act as if all was real or be consumed by the creeping doubt that poisoned all those that lived beyond their next mouthful.

Only one thing was certain—the Spider God was near; she would hear his every word, and perhaps even listen to them if it suited her. He had studied the Three Deities for several years—religion was the only bookish calling of which Lord Hwarn approved—but had never experienced a theophany such as this, not even an epiphany that he had chosen the right calling. As hunger for learning could not sustain a career in self-delusion and fostering the delusions of others, for the past fifteen years, the will of the gods had literally been the last thing on his mind. And even now, Huiln would rather brave the divine venom of the Spider God than to suffer the toxic hypocrisy of worrying about every word that came out of his mouth, just because he had the attention of the Thief of Worlds. Despite his harrowing vision, it was reasonable to assume the Spider God had no special interest in him, or she would have rewarded his earlier religious studies with a manifestation then, and not now; if she appeared to him now that he was an unbeliever, she wanted something other than faith. Something very simple. He was either bait or hook to dangle at the end of one of her long-ranging webs.

Huiln guessed that it had to do with his mission to Alfyria, which meant that she wished either to nurture or prevent war between the Five Worlds. This speculation was both reassuring and dreadful to Huiln, for it confirmed the importance of his task, though it remained to be seen whether he should shred these messages or deliver them.