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After a long hesitation, he stretched out his thought to one dark passage.
With a shimmer, the weave in the underrealm became an open window. Peering
through it he glimpsed a barren land, a sun low and red in its sky. It looked
remote, and oppressively empty and desolate.
He pulled back, uncertain what sort of spell this was. Could his thoughts,
his kuutekka, actually come and go through these windows? It darkened as he
drew away.
He touched the next one with his thought. It opened to a view from a great
aerie, high over a woodland. Yellow sunlight glinted from the tops of the
trees, and shone from within the forest. He smelled a distant ocean, mingled
with the forest smell. It was not a place he recognized. Most strange. He
let the window close.
The next opened onto darkness, a subterranean gloom lit by a red
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flicker of distant fire, volcanic fire, He could not see much, but he sensed a
labyrinth of underground passageways. He smelled sulfur; he sensed, though at
a great distance, the presence of the enemy. He pulled back with a shudder
and made certain that the window drew itself tightly closed again.
The fourth window opened onto darkness, also. But it was a kind of darkness
he understood; it was the natural gloom of the underrealm.
He could see connecting threads rippling outward, twisting and joining and
stretching off in various directions. He was surprised by the clarity of the
view. One thread seemed particularly bright and promising, and he thought he
heard a faint tinkle of laughter from it.
He sniffed cautiously-and thought he caught the smell of a demon-spirit. He
was startled to realize that he recognized the smell.
Start tonight, the iffling had said. Find your way in the underrealm.
Sighing, he stretched his kuutekka cautiously outward through the window, into
the underrealm beyond his cavern. His thoughts ranged down the thread,
searching and testing every knot he encountered, taking note of each change in
direction. The laughter grew louder, but came to sound more like crying than
laughter. In time, there was a faint yellow glow ahead, and the demon smell
became stronger. Windrush sniffed the underrealm for treachery.
He heard a faint metallic jangle of protection spells, but easily swept them
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aside. A moment later, a lazily dancing figure of light came into view. When
he had last seen it, it had been a figure of shadow-fire, but there was no
mistaking who it was.
Hodakai, he called.
There was no answer. The figure seemed to be stretching its arms and turning
about, as though pretending to be soaring-diving and banking and climbing. He
was muttering words that Windrush couldn't understand. ". . . Vela Oasis off
the port bow ... let's take her straight on through, and leave the spiral am
behind ..."
Hodakai! Windrush shouted.
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Qaaahhh! cried the demon, jumping and twisting around. Who's there?
The dragon hesitated. Surely Hodakai should have been able to see him-unless
he was not manifesting his kuu@ tekka visibly here. Do you not recognize the
presence of a dragon? he inquired.
Dragon-it's you! Yes@f course I do! Hodakai gulped. I was just-ahhh,
testing your honesty!
Ah, said Windrush. That is a good thing to do ... Hodakai.
He repeated the demon's name deliberately-not that there was any real power in
doing so. The demon, after all, had not given his name, and it was the
willingness to be known that gave a name actual power.
But there was no harm in reminding the spirit of how much he knew.
Hodakai seemed a little unnerved. If you wish me to judge your honesty
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