A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings #1) - Kevin Hearne Page 0,149

the hall, which was singularly strange. The floors, walls, and ceiling were all metal. There were slots and sometimes holes all along the walls, and I glimpsed eyes watching us on the other side of them. They could, no doubt, thrust spears or shoot bolts at us through those apertures. Holes arranged in lines in the floors waited to receive the metal bars of portcullises that were currently drawn up into the ceiling, allowing us to pass. Anyone trying to get down this hall without permission would have tremendous difficulty pulling it off—even one of the blessed. Nothing to set on fire and too narrow for a Hathrim to navigate anyway. No earth for a juggernaut to manipulate. No plant life for a greensleeve to twist. And the entire foundation of the building would be salted, no doubt, to prevent any trickery from below. I wondered what defense they would have against a tempest trying to infiltrate as the wind and soon had my answer: a series of three rooms that functioned as air locks.

“This side of the building and the other are completely sealed off except through these doors,” the mariner explained when I asked. “No way for a tempest to open them. They’d have to become solid eventually, and then they’d be vulnerable.”

“Incredible. Even the pelenaut doesn’t have this kind of security.”

The mariner shrugged. “Pelenauts are easy to come by.” Implying that whoever I was meeting was more important than our rightfully elected ruler. Interesting.

“I’ll leave you here. Someone else will take you the rest of the way on the other side. Just wave at the people on the other side of the windows. They know you’re coming.”

“Okay. Thanks. Have a great…well, do you ever have a great day doing this?”

“Every day he doesn’t die is pretty great. I think he has to be pretty old by now.”

“You mean whoever it is I’m meeting?”

He grunted and waved me through the first door. It slammed behind me, there was a hiss of pressure, and through a window of thick glass on one side I saw a pair of mariners. I waved, they nodded, and then they turned a wheel set in the wall that unlocked the next door in front of me. Once I stepped through, the procedure was repeated twice more. Once I was past the third air lock, the hallway looked considerably more friendly. A young woman waited for me in a well-lit and much wider hallway decorated with art instead of murder holes. Her clothing was a riot of bold colors, a statement of defiance against the atmosphere of doom surrounding her. She smiled a practiced smile, and her voice matched its brightness.

“Good morning, Master du Alöbar! Welcome! If you will follow me, please.”

“Okay, hello. What’s your name?”

She spun on her heel and spoke over her shoulder as she walked briskly down the hall. “We don’t have names here. I think you’re the only one in the building who does at the moment, so congratulations. You’re about to meet someone known as the Wraith, if he’s known by any name at all. You may simply address him as ‘sir.’ ”

“The Wraith?” I snorted. “That’s a mite pretentious, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t suggest you share your judgments with him. Please do not attempt to look at his face. If you do see him, even by accident, we will have to kill you. Is that clear?”

Her voice was so joyful that it took a moment for the import of her words to sink in. “What? You’re being serious?”

“Very serious. If you see his face, you will die. Is that clear?”

“It’s terrifying.” She turned to look at me, the smile gone. “It’s also clear,” I added, and the smile came back. Approval for good behavior. “Does the pelenaut know about all this?”

“Yes. Your orders are coming from him. But the Wraith will be able to explain and discuss some things that the pelenaut cannot in court or anywhere else. This environment is much more secure.”

“I’ll say. It’s a shrine to paranoia.”

We arrived at a door that had a normal knob on it, and she paused with her hand on it, the smile erased from her face again. “Sit in the chair on the other side of this door. Do not try to explore the room. Remember, if you see him, you die. Just listen and answer and stare at the wall. When you’re finished, I’ll escort you out.”

Wondering if I could trigger an approval response, I said, “Thank you. I will