Kaz and Li had been slowly slinking closer and closer to the door for at least half an hour. Or, if Kaz’s internal time-keeping was correct, a minimum of three days. The people in the room didn’t even need them any more, not now that they had gotten past the bit with all the yelling. Husede were far more emotional than Kaz had realized, and he longed to be elsewhere by the time they remembered that he existed.

“You look like you’re about to run,” a rumbling voice said with surprising gentleness. Kaz and Li turned from the small crowd of husede and kobolds who were arguing about who exactly should be on the Council now. Apparently it really wasn’t just a matter of choosing the strongest people, and the tribe members could actually vote out anyone they didn’t like, so choosing people they would accept was as important as choosing someone wise and powerful enough to lead.

Li mumbled, barely raising her head from Kaz’s shoulder. When the new husede hadn’t seemed to believe the truth about what happened, she had used the new illusion ability she’d learned when playing with the pups. All of their illusory copies had precisely played out the events that led to the deaths of the two husede, complete with their own voices. It was very convincing, but left Li utterly exhausted. Her core was working hard to refill her dantians, however, and Kaz had a feeling she was playing up her weakness by now, but he was more than willing to snuggle her close while she ‘recovered’.

“I don’t know what to do now,” Kaz admitted to Vek. “I just want to go, but-” He looked helplessly from the crowd of mostly strangers to the door that was so close now.

“Then go,” Vek said. He’d seemed gruff at first, but Kaz could see the calm kindness behind his brusque facade now, and it suddenly made sense that he’d not only taken in the mosui pups, but that they were thriving under his care.

“If you stay, they’ll just ask more and more from you,” the other male went on, tilting his head toward the others. “Can you help kill this beast, or burn out more fulan, or find more survivors, or just frighten a few people into obedience. And every one of those things will be reasonable, things you want to help with, but you can’t say yes to them all and still do what you need to do.”

Sudden guilt stabbed through Kaz. He could do those things, and more, and they did need to be done. But he only had a few weeks, and-

As if he could read Kaz’s mind, Vek’s tongue lolled out in sudden amusement. “In fact, I find that I also need help. Apparently, I’m going to be a member of a Council that has no idea what it’s doing, and so I won’t be able to spend much time with the pups for at least a day. Eld and Nogz are there, but Nogz plays with the puppies more than he watches them, and they both have other things to do, especially with Dax here as well.”

Li asked, lifting her head, eyes suddenly intent.

Vek chuffed a laugh. “Well, I was hoping you could watch them, but play is good for puppies, too.”

“For a day?” Kaz asked, already feeling some of the tension easing from his body.

“About that,” Vek agreed easily. “If you need to leave sooner, send Dugo for Eld.”

Li was nodding before Kaz could convince himself they couldn’t afford any distractions, and Vek grinned, tail wagging. “Better get going, then. You’d be amazed how much trouble almost fifty puppies can get into.”

Fifty? Kaz’s eyes widened, and he suddenly wondered if this was such a good idea after all, but Li had already dropped her concealment around them. she said to Kaz alone.

Vek had looked slightly startled at their sudden disappearance, but now he stepped aside as Kaz tugged the door open just enough to slip through. Then he was off, and he had time to take a detour.

=+=+=+=

Li said as they did exactly that. Admittedly, she was talking about an entirely different set of stairs, but still, they were definitely sneaking, and definitely going down stairs.

Kaz told her again. They had gone down several sets of stairs by now, and every one seemed to remind Li to tell him she’d told him so. Fortunately, this was the level they’d been heading for, and Kaz set his hand on the ki-stones embedded in the wall that seemed to simply cut off the stairs midstep.

He’d already been standing there for several minutes, watching the blurry outline of husede move past on the other side of that wall, some of them carrying ki-crystals that shone brightly in Kaz’s vision. A familiar bell had rung not long ago, however, telling Kaz the ‘shift’ was over, at least for these workers, and once a particularly thick mass of mana went by, nothing else had moved beyond the stone wall.

Cautiously, Kaz pushed open the wall, which pivoted on a central axis. He slid through as quickly as possible and returned the hidden door to its original position, then froze against the wall, watching and listening for signs that someone might have noticed them.

Nothing happened, so Kaz breathed out a soft sigh and moved off down the hall. Thanks to his sense of direction and Li’s ability to revisit their memories, he moved effortlessly through several turns before arriving at the large cavern at the center of the processing level. Yumi, ki-crystals, and goods of all kinds arrived on the platforms in rooms to one side, and the husede then took those items down the various other halls to be made into more useful objects.

A scent caught his attention, and Kaz drew in a deep breath, then smiled. His mental image of what happened on this level was slightly wrong, but in a good way. The first time he’d come through here, he’d seen and smelled only husede, but now the scent of several kobolds mingled with the other aromas. Hopefully, that meant that both races were working together here, as well as in the rest of the city.

Male kobolds didn’t often get the chance to do anything creative, other than the occasional leatherworking or making of stone tools, since the females could do those things so much more easily and accurately with the assistance of their power. Kaz hoped the kobolds who worked here were doing so because they’d chosen the job, and that they were enjoying the chance to do something entirely outside their traditional activities.

Li told him excitedly as Kaz carried her down the tunnel where the husede stored the ki-crystals the miners found.

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Kaz wasn’t sure how something could taste ‘cool’, but perhaps that was the same as refreshing? he told her.

Li asked, suddenly sinking back down dejectedly.

That didn’t seem right, either. Li needed ki to grow properly, and these crystals were the best source of power they’d found. She shared his ki, of course, but somehow he knew that wasn’t as good as taking it in herself.

Kaz promised his dragon, suddenly regretting the suggestion. When he’d come through the first time, there had only been a hundred or so of each crystal, other than red. He’d taken a fair amount, but then he’d been more worried about discovery, and less about taking a resource the city needed.

Fortunately, he needn’t have been concerned. Either there had been an unusually small number of crystals last time, or the miners were now much more productive. He suspected the sudden change was a result of healthier, happier miners, and perhaps a better system of reward than ‘dig or starve’. The cave ahead was ablaze with ki, to the extent that Kaz had to push as much of his own ki out of his eyes as he could, just so he could see well enough to walk.

Reaching down, he tapped his pouch. It was time to make sure that his dragon wouldn’t go hungry for the foreseeable future.

=+=+=+=

“...and then Kyla took down the bad xiyi, rescuing the humans,” Kaz said as Li produced yet another illusion. Eld had been extraordinarily pleased to see Kaz and Li, and all but ran from the den when they informed him they would be taking over. Nogz was more reluctant, but eventually he left as well. Now that Kaz had had to feed, entertain, clean up, and now teach so many puppies, he understood Eld’s feelings. Li, of course, had taken on the task of entertainment with gusto, leaving Kaz to cook and clean, but now it was time for a howl, and the pups were entranced.

“Does Kyla really look like that?” one of the older pups asked, pointing at the image Li was creating. In it, Kyla whirled through the large hut where the human royals had been kept, beating back their attackers. A round little Mei was at her side, and several puppies had already shown a little too much interest in acquiring a fuergar of their own. Kaz had tried explaining that Mei was a very special fuergar, but he suspected he’d need to warn Vek to keep a close eye on them until they became interested in something else.

Kaz nodded. Admittedly, Li seemed to like to embellish her illusions as much as Kyla liked to enhance her howls, but the Kyla-figure was fairly accurate, if perhaps a little too small. Li didn’t like to admit anyone was larger than her, so everyone else had shrunk, while her own brave image had grown disproportionately large.

“Why is her fur like that?” The puppy asked, plucking at his own brownish-yellow fuzz.

Kaz thought he meant the tufts and whorls that made Kyla’s fur stand up in what seemed at first glance to be utter disorder. Then he noticed that the pup was patting his shoulder, and realized that he meant the burned parts.

“Well,” he said, settling back for another howl, “when we entered the human city, Kyla decided that she would wander off on her own. Is it ever wise to leave without telling someone where you are, or going with a group?” He waited for the chorus of resigned ‘no’s, and opened his mouth to continue, only to be interrupted.

“It’s time for sleep, puppies,” Dugo said firmly. Kaz had quickly discovered that the older pup knew exactly what everyone was supposed to be doing at all times. He was old enough that he had to go do his job as a gatherer, but when he returned to the den, he helped Kaz get all the pups under control for the first time since Eld and Nogz left.

Kaz nodded, and Li allowed the illusion to fade with a soft sigh of relief. She’d already eaten several crystals, and each one gave her a fresh burst of power that allowed her to continue creating her images, but while it was good to practice the skill, and she was already noticeably better at it, she was genuinely tired, and not just physically.

Dugo ushered all of the pups into their various huts, making sure the right younglings went into the correct hut. Apparently some would continue playing or harass each other long into the night if given the chance, while others needed to snuggle together in order to get any rest. There was one older pup in each hut to protect the littler ones and keep the peace, which left Kaz, Li, and Dugo alone in the middle of the ring of huts, listening to the yips and squeaks of puppies who were resisting sleep.

Dugo rubbed his short muzzle, his droopy face looking even more despondent than usual. Even his ears sagged as he tried to draw in a too-deep breath and wheezed a bit. Kaz turned toward him. “May I touch you?” Kaz asked, gesturing toward Dugo’s flat nose. “I can do a bit of healing. I’d like to see if I can help.”

The pup’s eyes widened, and he backed up a step. “There’s nothing to be done,” he said with only a hint of bitterness. “My father took me to our healer, and my mother even insisted that the female’s healer look at me, although I’m a male. Both of them said I’m just deformed.” He fingered his muzzle, snuffling slightly. “It happens in our tribe sometimes, but not so often since we started taking mates from other tribes.”

Kaz wanted to ask exactly which tribe, and what had happened for Dugo to end up here, but the younger kobold didn’t seem interested in telling him more, so he simply said, “You know I have power. A lot of power. I may be able to do something they couldn’t.”

Over the last several hours, Dugo had relaxed around Kaz and Li, even giving his snuffling laugh a few times as Li flew just out reach of some of the pups, causing them to tumble over each other awkwardly. Now, he eyed Kaz suspiciously, then nodded. “All right.”

Before the pup could change his mind, Kaz reached out and gently touched the squashed snout, pulsing a tiny bit of blue ki through it. As the ki quickly dispersed again, Kaz followed its path through Dugo’s body, trying to picture what he was sensing.

Li said, once again creating an illusion. This one was small and simple, pulling from Kaz’s understanding of the way kobold anatomy worked, and what he was feeling in Dugo. Dugo stared at it, and Kaz pointed to the narrow black spaces that were the nostrils, sending Li a warm rush of gratitude.

“Your nostrils are too small,” he explained. “You probably know that, since you breathe through your mouth most of the time. But here,” he pointed to the inside of the mouth, faintly visible through the foggy jaw, “there’s something else going on.”

He repeated his earlier actions, shifting his fingers as he sent Wood ki into Dugo’s face and jaws from different angles. There was definitely something happening in the back of the pup’s mouth, and perhaps in his throat as well, but Kaz wasn’t comfortable trying to alter anything he wasn’t certain he understood. He’d seen the insides of a surprising number of kobold mouths, and even a few noses, under Rega’s supervision, but had never examined a throat other than to pull out a stuck bone.

“Do you have any mamu?” he asked, stepping away from Dugo again.

Dugo blinked, then nodded. “It grows well in the dead pools. Why?” His voice was definitely suspicious now, and Kaz couldn’t blame him. Mamu was most often used for numbing wounds while a healer worked on them, but Dugo wasn’t injured.

“Good,” Kaz said. “Now look.” He opened his own mouth, pointing to the very back, where his tongue vanished down his throat. Then he pointed to the image Li was still holding in the air. “You have too much skin here. It’s falling down and blocking your breathing. I think I can remove the excess, but it may hurt, and continue to hurt for a while.”

Dugo was backing away now, eyes looking a little wild. “Remove? As in, cut it out? No!”

Kaz nodded. It was Dugo’s choice, and the pup should have time to think about it. Sometimes a healer had to cut out flesh when it started going bad, or open a wound to get out a piece of broken weapon or a tooth, but it was dangerous, and no one simply did it as casually as Kaz was suggesting.

“If you change your mind before I leave,” he said, “just let me know. I do believe it would help.” And for Kaz that belief in itself might be enough to make it true, though he tried not to think about that too hard. How much would it take before he managed to disbelieve himself out of half the things he could do?

Dugo was still backing away. “No. I won’t. Fair howls, Kaz.” He turned and almost ran toward his hut, leaving Kaz and Li staring after him.

Li let the illusion vanish. she said almost accusingly.

Kaz grimaced. She was right. “We’ll set up the hammock somewhere,” he told her, and they headed off into the darkness to find a place to rest. The distraction the puppies provided had helped, but he needed some time to hold Li and think about what had happened today.