LITMIR.BIZ

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laughed as well. ‘When the day comes that we must confront the agents of the Nameless One, we may have great need of these people you disdain.’

      Magnus had the good grace to look crestfallen.

      Nakor continued. ‘What troubles me is that these manifestations of godpower, these dreams and echoes and memories, are now appearing with more frequency. At least a dozen strange incidents that our agents have reported since the Serpentwar lead me to believe this is so.’

      ‘What do you think it means?’ asked Miranda.

      ‘That something is coming. Something that is tied to the slumbering enemy.’

      Pug looked at Nakor. ‘The Dasati?’

      ‘It was the Nameless One who influenced the Pantathians to bring the Saaur through the rift to our world. We know it was a ruse to loose demons here.

      ‘Destruction and chaos are the Nameless One’s allies. He has no cares for the short-term effects on this world, so long as horrors and evil are visited on people and his powers rise. I can only guess,’ said Nakor, ‘but I think he dreams of supremacy, else why try to establish Zaltais on a throne, instead of the Emerald Queen? He needed his surrogate, his dream being, in control, so he could hasten his return to this reality. He seeks to put himself above the other Controller Gods before they can return the balance.’

      ‘Madness,’ said Magnus.

      ‘By it’s nature, evil is madness,’ replied Nakor. ‘Hence the Days of the Mad Gods’ Rage.’

      ‘The Chaos Wars,’ said Pug.

      Magnus said, ‘So we must struggle and die and our children are to struggle and die after us?’

      ‘Perhaps,’ said Nakor. ‘We may never know a moment of transcendent triumph, a time when we can say, “the day is ours!” and know the struggle has passed forever.

      ‘Think of us as ants, if you will. We must topple a mighty citadel, a monstrous thing of stone and mortar, and we have only our naked bodies to spend in the effort.

      ‘So we labour for years, centuries, millennia, even epochs; scraping away at stone with our tiny jaws. Thousands, tens of thousands, millions of us die, and slowly the stones begin to crumble.

      ‘But, if we have a design, and possess knowledge, we can choose where to bite. We will not trouble all the stones, merely the keystone upon which all the others rest. And then we may wear away at the mortar around that stone, so that at last, the stone can be pushed aside, and once that is accomplished the massive stones above begin to move, and over time, fall.

      ‘No, we may never see an end to this struggle, but in time the Good Goddess and the Nameless One may return, and the balance would be restored.’

      ‘What sort of world would that be?’ wondered Magnus.

      ‘One with less strife, I hope,’ said Miranda.

      ‘Perhaps,’ said Nakor. ‘But even if it is not, the strife will be far more prosaic. What we do now is contest with worlds hanging in the balance.’

      Magnus looked down at his younger brother. ‘And the price of defeat is too grim to contemplate.’

      Pug looked at his two sons and his wife, then said, ‘As well I know.’

      No one needed to say more, they all knew that Pug’s first two children had died during the Serpentwar and that the loss was still bitter to him.

      Nakor stood and said, ‘We should go. I’ll send messages to our agents in the region to see if the attack on Caleb was part of a greater design or merely an unhappy accident.’

      ‘Wait a moment, Nakor,’ asked Pug, as Miranda and Magnus left. ‘McGrudder was right we should move him?’

      ‘No,’ said Pug. ‘I think we leave him in place. If these are bandits alone, then no harm has been done. If those who attacked Caleb are Varen’s agents, let them believe they gulled us into thinking the attack was by mere bandits. If McGrudder comes under scrutiny, it should not be hard to discern in so small a place; we can always dispatch a watcher to watch the watchers.’

      Nakor nodded with a grin. This was the sort of underhanded plotting that appealed to him.

      ‘There is another matter,’ said Pug.

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘I received a message yesterday and I am greatly concerned about it. Will you give me your thoughts?’

      ‘Always.’

      Pug produced a scroll from inside the folds of his robe and Nakor glanced at it.

      Pug said. ‘It’s not the first. They have been appearing on my desk from time to time for years now.’

      ‘How long?’

      ‘Since before we met. The first one gave me the instruction to tell Jimmy to say to you—’

      ‘There is no magic,’ finished Nakor. ‘I know. When I heard that, and from a magician no less, I knew I had to come to Stardock.’ He looked at the scroll again. ‘Where are they coming from?’

      ‘Not where, but when. These are from our future.’

      Nakor nodded, then his eyes widened as he read it again. ‘This is … from you!’ he said, and for the first time since Pug had met him, the small Isalani was speechless.

      Tad lay on the bed with his arm behind his head as Zane paced the floor. ‘You’re going to wear a groove in the stone if you keep that up,’ he said.

      ‘I can’t help it. Someone brings us our food this morning, and we’re told to wait. Then lunch. Then someone comes to fetch the chamber pot and bring us a clean one, and now it’s almost suppertime and still no one has come to tell us what we’re doing here.’

      ‘It’s obvious what we’re doing here,’ said Tad. ‘We’re waiting. What we don’t know is what we’re waiting for.’

      Zane’s expression darkened, and Tad sat up on the bed. He knew that look. Zane was a thin excuse away from taking out his bad mood on his foster brother.

      Just as Tad sat up, anticipating Zane’s pre-emptive attack, Nakor appeared at the door and said, ‘You two, come with me.’

      He left so abruptly that Tad almost unbalanced himself trying to hurry after him. He caught up with Zane and the Isalani halfway down the hall and thought it odd how fast the little man walked.

      ‘Don’t stare,’ Nakor said.

      A moment later, Tad hit a doorjamb. He had just walked past a large open door that led into a courtyard dominated by a huge pool. At the edge of the pool and in the water was a group of young women. Tad’s attention was diverted in equal measure by the fact that all the girls were remarkably beautiful, completely naked, and their skin was a pale green and their hair the colour of bronze wire.

      Tad suffered another injury as he stepped backwards only to be knocked down as Zane turned around and came flying back to the doorway to verify if he had indeed witnessed the same scene.

      The girls turned to stare at them and both boys realized that they had no irises and their eyes were pearl-white in colour.

      Nakor helped Tad to his feet with one hand, and waved to the girls with the other. ‘I told you not to stare,’ he said, as Tad touched his nose to see if it was bleeding. ‘Come along.’

      Tad said, ‘Ah …’

      Nakor said, ‘They are six sisters of the Pithirendar. They don’t care for clothing much and they spend a great deal of time in water. They are not entirely human. Though they are human enough to get you boys into trouble, so stay away from them or I’ll give you even more to think about.’

      ‘Not human …’ Zane muttered, trying to convince himself that his eyes hadn’t betrayed him. Tad reached out and half-dragged

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