Page 74 of Into the West

Nearly every day, Delia saw or learned of something new, wonderful, or just odd. The first had been the dyheli, graceful creatures that looked like a more refined and much larger version of goats, with a pair of branchless, twisting horns. They had taken over the management of the equine, cow, and sheep herds, without even being asked. Somehow they managed to get all of these creatures to drop their dung in corner “latrine” areas so it was easier to collect and drop into compost pits. To Delia’s wonderment, some of the dyheli could speak mind to mind with people who didn’t even have the power of Mindspeech. She was particularly enamored of the King Stag, Akayla. He was endlessly patient and never seemed to lose his temper. When she’d asked him why the dyheli had taken on the management of everything but the pigs, he had snorted. :No one sane wants someone’s dung on their dinner, no?: he’d replied. Which, of course, made perfect sense. As for the herds of swine, for the most part they were all living in spacious sties, which was where they liked to be. At least, according to the swineherds she’d talked to. The dyheli had simply “told” them that from now on, they were to relieve themselves only in special “latrine trenches” along the wall at the lowest part of the sty. They were, evidently, perfectly happy to comply. The trenches led to more compost pits. In all cases, a touch of magic sped up the usual process of decay, turning the dung into usable compost over the course of a single day, and keeping the smell to a minimum.

Kordas had been over the moon about this. I suppose, she thought, as she hung up a lovely straw star, that this is not only part of his responsibility to his people, to keep them healthy, it’s also in his own self-interest, because he is Landwise, and anything that hurts the land hurts him.

Meanwhile, the thing that had her excited was taking place uphill, at the northern end of the Tayledras compound, near the Heartstone.

They were growing a manor house.

At least, that was what Delia was calling it in her mind, because a manor house was, more or less, what it was going to be in function. Kordas wanted to be able to crowd all fifteen thousand people into it if they were attacked by something they couldn’t immediately drive off, and he’d sketched out his basic idea to the Hawkbrothers, who had nodded and said it could be done. “They won’t be comfortable,” Kordas had said. “But they’ll be alive.”

She’d assumed it would be “built,” because obviously—but no. The Hawkbrothers had some sort of thing already in the ground, a thing that grew buildings, and right now, the roof and most of the top floor were sticking up out of the dirt. She still could not wrap her mind around that concept. A “thing” that grew buildings! If the evidence hadn’t been up there right in front of her, she never would have believed it. That was why it was near the Heartstone, so the “thing” could take energy from the Heartstone to help it build.

Still . . . as they got to the vicinity of where this building was growing, she paused in her decorating to admire it. It was enchanting. It looked for all the world as if it was a normal building, but one somehow being built upward, rather than from the skeleton of the framework outward and inward. It was going to be quite impressive, with granite walls and a slate roof. Then she frowned as the true size of this building became apparent to her.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jelavan.

“This would have to be twenty stories tall to fit fifteen thousand people in it,” she pointed out. “Kordas is going to be upset.” Huh. Either I am getting very good at estimating how many people you can pack inside a building, or—maybe I overheard someone saying the same thing and don’t remember it?

“Oh, that’s not a problem.” Jelavan waved away her concerns with a claw that still held a straw tervardi. “All your people don’t have to fit in the building.”

She sighed. Jelavan had a habit of wanting to tease things out into conversations that could have taken place in a third of the time. Still . . . it amused the little hertasi, and he deserved some amusement for all his hard work. She had thought the Dolls worked hard, but the hertasi worked harder.

“And why is that, exactly?” she asked patiently.

“Oh, you would learn eventually, so I might as well show you now. It’s not as if we’ve kept it a secret from under you.”

Evidently she was getting better at taking hints, because the answer practically leapt out of her mind. “The tunnels! You’re going to show me the hertasi tunnels!”

“I am, in fact.” Now Jelavan’s mouth was halfway open and he was making the little panting sounds that meant laughter. “You are more clever than you look!”

“You’re lucky there’s no snow here,” she retorted. “I’d put a snowball down your back!” And that was when she had an idea.

She pictured a big snowdrift that she knew was just outside the Veil, firmed that picture in her mind, and “reached” for a handful—and stuffed it down the back of Jelavan’s tunic.

The sight of Jelavan trying to get the cold stuff out of his back, yipping and dancing, completely made up for the way he “innocently” jostled her so that a leaf full of water spilled over her head.

Kordas examined his growing “manor.” The building itself was unexpectedly handsome. But—

“This building is only supposed to have four stories and a basement,” he pointed out, beginning to feel anxious. “There—”

“Is no way that fifteen thousand people will fit in it, even if we stacked them like cordwood,” Silvermoon said, smoothly interrupting him. “Our tools and magic are good, but they are not going to grow you a building that large. Leaving aside the fact that even if we could, the people on the uppermost floors would curse you every day they had to go up and down all those stairs. As we have learned with our ekele, four stories are quite tall enough unless you have safe platforms to haul things up by, pulleys, and counterweights as they do in mines, and as we do in other Vales.”

That would mostly be the servants going up and down all those stairs, poor things. No, he’s right—

“So what’s the solution?” he asked bluntly. “Because I know you are hiding a solution up one of your sleeves.”

“Ah, you have come to know me so well.” Silvermoon smirked. “The hertasi tunnels, of course. This entire area is riddled with them. We decided that instead of collapsing them as we usually do when we leave a place, we’ll leave them open for your use. The tunnels are a lot easier to defend than a building.”

Kordas looked at him with alarm. “Isn’t that—the foundations would be undermined—sinkholes—”

“Please, give us more credit than that. Never mind, I’ll show you. Come along.” He beckoned, and Kordas followed him into what he had thought was an ornamental planting, but in the center of the planting was a round door in the ground. Lifting the doorhandles revealed a set of well-lit circular stairs. He couldn’t identify what they were made of. Too warm to the touch for metal, but the color of wrought iron, and apparently just as tough and quite thoroughly anchored to the wall, because they didn’t even tremble as the two of them made their way down. Kordas marveled as they wound their way to the bottom. This descent into the underground could have been alarming, but there was nothing that was in the least disturbing about this staircase. There was plenty of light on the stairs, thanks to mage-lights, and plenty of light at the bottom. It was only about one story down, and they found themselves at a crossroads of four tunnels.

The lighting was considerably dimmer down here than the sunlight of the surface, but that was probably because the eyes of the hertasi were more sensitive than those of humans. It was definitely humid, though not uncomfortably so. Much like a wine cellar, actually.

And now Kordas saw why Silvermoon had assured him that these tunnels weren’t undermining the surface above. The walls of the tunnel looked like glazed brick, and they were properly reinforced at intervals by heavy arches of more glazed brick.

“You see?” said Silvermoon. “Nothing is going to collapse. Not even if there was a fire down here. It would only make the tunnels stronger. The only thing that can collapse them is explosive magic, and you’d have to know exactly what to do and where the tunnels were to make that collapse happen. At any rate, come along, I’ll show you a little. The hertasi have already prepared the area next to where the basement to your building will be, and once the basement is completed, they will be putting in concealed entrances to these tunnels.”

“Because we might need to escape fast, and we don’t want whoever or whatever has invaded our building—”