"I don't think Brede took that view. In the end, she came to believe that the evolution of the Duat Mind could continue only in your merging with the human race. I think she may have envisioned some relict Pliocene population eventually mating with primitive Homo sapiens—planting metapsychic seeds in the huge, marvelous, empty Neanderthaler brains. Voila! Instant Cro-Magnon. The really funny thing is, the modern type of human did appear with suspicious suddenness, and leaped to metapsychic operancyin a paltry fifty thousand years or so."
She thrust emphatically at the dying fire. The logs, reduced almost entirely to charcoal, crumbled to bits. Her voice was flat and her mind tightly sealed. "If this is what you'd call the masterplan of a compassionate God, then your faith is more cold-blooded thanmine, Creyn. We humans will have climbed to Unity using the doomed Mind of Duat as a stepping-stone. Have you seen the army ants bridge a stream in the jungle? Thousands of them link together and willingly drown so their luckier fellows cross over without getting wetfeet."
"Elizabeth, the people in Duat don't know."
"But I do." She carefully replaced the poker. "And I don't think I can bear it. Not that, not any of it."
"You only toy with despair," he insisted.
"I know. Sister Amerie used to say that one twits the Holy Spirit only at one's peril—but she couldn't quite break me of the habit." Elizabeth smiled brightly. "Shall we go downstairs and take care of our intelligence briefing?"
***
When the big door to the lodge's grand salon banged open, there was instant uproar. Elizabeth and the Peace Faction conferees, deeply engrossed in their mind-meld, were so taken aback that they did nothing. That left the friar free to elude Mary-Dedra and Godal the Steward and the other two Tanu retainers, who had chased him up from the kitchen and who lacked the PK or coercive ability that would have restrained the old man in the first place. He barged right into the salon with the pursuers shouting and clutching at him and uttering telepathic apologies and belated pleas for help.
"Hold!" bellowed Minanonn, rising from the depths of the sofa like fulminating Jupiter.
The entire quintet of intruders froze in midcry.
"Who in the world—" Elizabeth began.
Minanonn released his coercive grip on the Black Crag people, who pulled themselves together. The elderly human male in the tattered Franciscan habit remained completely paralyzed, balanced on one foot and with hands raised and clenched. His eyes were alive and glittering.
"We'd welcomed him," said Mary-Dedra indignantly. "Helped him to find the place, then dried him and gave him a nice supper!"
"He seemed harmless enough," said Godal the Steward, "until Dedra let slip that Elizabeth had come down at last to meet with you Exalted Ones—"
"And at that, the silly old coot yelled something about his mission," Mary-Dedra said, "and came charging up here before we knew what we were about! Now, if you please, we'll be chucking him out the front gate."
Dionket the Healer said, "First, we'd better hear what he wants."
"Let him speak, Minnie," said Peredeyr Firstcomer.
"But keep a firm hold on the rest of him," said Meyn the Unsleeping.
The friar, still immobile from the neck down, licked his lips and cleared his throat. He fixed his eyes on Leilani-Tegveda the Fair-browed and said, "Am I addressing the Grand Master Elizabeth Orme?"
"I am she," said a much less imposing woman who wore a severe black gown.
The paralyzed priest looked somewhat relieved. In spite of his ludicrous posture, he spoke with dignity. "My name is Anatoly Severinovich Gorchakov and I am a brother of the Order of Friars Minor. Your friend Amerie Roccaro has sent me to be your spiritual adviser."
Elizabeth stared at him, speechless.
"You can turn me loose now," Brother Anatoly told Minanonn. "I'll go back peaceably to my supper and you can get on with your conference." He said to Elizabeth, "I just wanted you to know that I'll be waiting when you're ready for me."
Minanonn looked at Elizabeth, who nodded.
The coercive grip faded. Anatoly lowered his foot, unclenched his hands, and resettled his rope belt. He managed a rather sketchy sign of the cross. "When you're ready," he repeated, then turned and walked out the door.
5
THE VERY FIRST visit of the ghastly houri to Tony Wayland had come closest to being the final one.
Half-mad with fear and still befuddled by his interrogation at the hands of Their Awful Majesties Sham and Ayfa, Tony had been certain that only torture and death awaited him. He was astonished but not inclined to ask questions when the seductive creature entered his cell in the dungeon at High Vrazel. Perhaps she was there to provoke him to fresh treasons against humanity; perhaps she was merely the Firvulag equivalent of a last cigarette for the condemned. Whatever ... she was lissome and lubricious, more or less humanly propor tioned, and although her coal-black skin and scarlet hair and ecu betrayed her exotic origins, he never would have suspected the truth. He had already embraced her, and was well on the way to the point of no return, when doom was averted in a most unlikely way.
Karbree the Worm, the giant who had captured him, came tramping into the dungeon and hammered on the cell's wooden door with both mailed fists, bellowing:
"Skathe! I know you're in there, you snaggle-cunt ramafucker! Ha-ha! Bad luck for you, comrade! We're off to Goriah right now."
This demonic charivari having deflated all Tony's amorous aspirations, the houri leaped off him with a screech of rage and cursed the laughing monster on the other side of the door.
"Don't blame me, sweeting," Karbree cooed. A slitted green eye glinted in the door's peephole. "It was Sham and Ayfa's decision. They want emissaries on the spot as soon as possible after Nodonn fries the brains of the Lowlife usurper. We're to press him for the return of our sacred Sword before he manages to think of some reason to repudiate the bargain he made with us. The royals command that we leave High Vrazel within the hour—so forget that unholy experiment of yours, and get your ass armored and hopping!"
The houri leaned over Tony, curtaining him in glorious hair. Her hands caressed his pectorals. "Later, dear Tonee," she whispered, letting one blood-red fingernail trace a line from his sternum to his navel. He felt the cell whirl about him. She kissed him with lips that tasted of strawberries, and for one split second he believed she was his abandoned goblin wife and cried:
"Rowane, don't go!"
Then the illusion vanished and he uttered a sob of horror.
Standing over him, her head grazing the stone ceiling, was the appalling ogress official called the Dreadful Skathe. She grinned, showing a mouthful of tusks like crooked ivory daggers.
"Pretty good, was I?" She chucked Tony under the chin. Her fist was ham-sized, and the tickling finger had a talon that would have done credit to a firebacked eagle. "Let's see now," the monster mused. "I don't see any reason why we can't take you with us. We'll be trav eling fast and light on this fucking royal mission, but you can ride pillion. We'll find our magic moment somewhere along the way."
***
For more than two sleepless days, the Firvulag heroes and their human supernumerary traveled west, halting only to exchange ruined chalikos for fresh ones. Then news of Nodonn's defeat reached them at Burask, and the original mission was aborted. Hoping to resume her interrupted experiment, Skathe booked an expensive suite at the best hotel in town, which had been the local pleasure dome when Burask belonged to the Tanu. But Tony only gave a woozy sneer when the houri reappeared, said, "Not bloody likely," and collapsed and slept like a dead man.
Skathe cursed human fragility roundly and reassumed her gigantic shape. There were ways to rouse Tony, and other droll experiments besides the amatory sort that he might be encouraged to participate in as a prelude to the ultimate diversion. But no sooner had the ogress begun to rehearse the possibilities than she felt her brain tingle. The fur-covered bed with Tony snoring on it wavered and grew dim, and a vision of Queen Ayfa of the Firvulag took its p
lace.
Skathe, my Great Captain! came the farspoken voice of the Monarch.
"I am here, Your Appalling Highness."
Up to your old vulgar tricks, I see—while princes perish and worlds quake and omens and portents proliferate like hoobies in a mulch pile! Well, you can forget about playing games. Momentous deeds are pending—battles!—and you're going to be there.
"Your obedient vassal, Sovereign of the Heights and Depths."
That's better ... I want you and the Worm to ride hell-for-leather to Bardelask. With Nodonn dead and the Trickster slightly the worse for wear, we have a perfect opportunity to launch a decisive assault. The town's well softened by raids and ripe for the kill. We've ordered Mimee of Famorel to march on it—and you and the Worm are to hightail it on down there and act as official observers. Sham and I want an honest report, not one of the Birdbrain's usual self-serving pieces of bombastic bullshit. You know these male generals! Stuff their dispatches with endless accounts of glorious derring-do, and stint the casualty reports and unit efficiency ratings and loot inventories. This will be the first field action for the Famorel host in more than fifty years. They did well enough in the Last Grand Combat with the general staff keeping a close eye on them—but I want to be certain that they're fully committed to the new ways.
"Arms united, minds united!" Skathe interposed smartly, quoting the new Firvulag victory slogan.
Save that bumf for the troops—not that they'll need much encouragement, what with Bardelask's having the biggest brewery in the Many-Colored Land...
"Now that's what I call a strategic objective!"
You keep a clear head—and that goes for the Worm, too. Or else! Just remember that we'll be counting on Famorel to guard our south flank when we make our big move on Roniah next month. This Bardelask action is just a piddling little skirmish, but it's a perfect opportunity for performance evaluation. Do a good job. Once the battle's won and you've sent your reports in, I don't care how much beer guzzling or Lowlife futtering you do. Now get moving—and Slitsal!
The warrior-ogress saluted the fading vision. "Slitsal, High Queen!" Then she threw Tony over her shoulder and headed for the hotel stables.
***
Ten hours later, the two Great Captains of the Firvulag and their unconscious captive reached a certain derelict Tanu fort on the River Saone, after having been slowed only slightly by a thick fog that rolled in over the Cote d'Or. There, by prearrangement, they took delivery of a confiscated riverboat and its deforced human pilot. The Firvulag regulars who had seen to the procurement of the boat loaded the heroes' baggage while Tony stood groggily on the fort dock wondering where he was.
The boat's skipper, a homely beanpole of a woman, proved unexpectedly mettlesome in spite of her lost gray tore and the fact that both her ankles were chained to a twenty-seven-kilo anchor that she was obliged to hold in her arms. She spat at Karbree's spurred feet when he told her that she was to take them to Bardelask, and said, "Fat chance. Go take a flying fuck."
The Worm's ophidian eyes crinkled in good humor. "Don't be unreasonable, Lowlife. Your alternative is a melancholy one—a diving lesson with that large piece of polymer-clad lead preceding you to the bottom of the Saone."
"I might as well die now as later," she retorted. "Everyone knows what happens to humans captured by you fiends. Rape, dismemberment, and then watching bits of yourself being gobbled up before your dying eyes. No thanks, ogre. You can drown me now."
"You've listened to too many Tanu lies, dear," said Skathe. She propelled Tony up the gangplank and eased him into a comfortable seat. "Ask this chap. Nobody's eaten him."
"Not yet," said the woman.
Tony snapped wide-awake.
Skathe croaked merrily. "Just propaganda. Fairy tales. My, what a lovely boat!"
Karbree drew himself up. His obsidian armor, inset with hundreds of green beryls and chased with gold, gleamed splendidly in the swirling mist. "Do you know who we are, Lowlife? Heroes of the Grand Combat! Peaceful emissaries of the Firvulag Court!"
"You're spooks, and spooks eat people," the skipper insisted. "At least, the giant ones do—and you qualify on that point with knobs on, big buddy."
Karbree smote his breastplate with a ringing clang. "On my honor as a member of the Gnomish Council—I, Karbree the Worm, swear that you will be unharmed if you cooperate! Pilot the three of us to Bardelask speedily, get us past the Tanu marine patrol at Roniah and through the four stretches of rapids, and we will set you free in your own boat when we arrive safe at our destination."
The baggage was all stowed and dwarf troopers stood ready at the bow and stern lines. Karbree smiled, held out a hand to the skipper, and said, "Let me carry your anchor into the wheelhouse."
The woman chewed her lower lip. "Well..."
"Such a well-kept craft," Skathe said. "She must be very fast. How long will it take for us to make the trip, dear?"
"I can get you to Bardy-Town inside of twenty-six hours. Less if this puke blows away and I can shoot the rapids at speed."
"Wonderful," said the ogress. "Let's be off."
"All right, it's a deal." The skipper marched up the gangplank with Karbree solicitously bearing the anchor, and a few minutes later they were on their way.
***
In the calm stretch of water below Roniah, when deepening night and the fog transformed the plass-roofed boat into a gently rocking womb, Tony dozed again and it seemed that the terrible creature who held him in thrall was not a Firvulag she-warrior at all, but his own Howler bride, Rowane.
"I didn't want to leave you," he mumbled. "It's just that I'm not too strong these days. If only they hadn't robbed me of my silver tore, it would have been all right. Forgive me for going away. Forgive me..."
She said, "But you didn't go, darling Tonee. You're right here with me. You don't have to be afraid. Just love me the way you used to do."
"I can't, without the tore. That's the trouble." But Rowane—or was it the scarlet-haired houri?—was tantalizingly insistent, and he was trying to remember a danger, and pushing at her, and thrashing about on some couch that was much too narrow, and when his sleep-drugged eyes opened and he finally saw—
"Aaugh!" he screamed, and threw a wild punch. He fell off the slippery leather couch and landed flat on his face. Fortunately, the deck of the pneumatic craft was quite resilient.
"Everything all right back there?" came the amused voice of Karbree from the forward cabin.
"No!" said Skathe. "Mind your own business, Worm."
The houri lifted Tony and sat him back on the couch. The only light was a greenish glow from some redundant instrumentation in the stern. This had the unfortunate effect of turning the succubus's hair from scarlet to muddy gray. Cuddling up to him, she began to kiss the angle of his jaw and stroke his spine.
He flinched. "Please don't. I'd like my clothes back."
Her fingernails nipped his earlobe. The kisses skittered down his chest like light-footed insects. "I'd like something else!"
But he was shivering and pulled away. "You have a lot to learn about human men. You really can't make me, you know. I have to be in the mood. Which at this moment I emphatically am not."
"Are you frightened, poor baby? There's no need to be. After our little experiment, I promise to let you go. Just ... cooperate a little! Our people have always been very prejudiced against alliances with you humans. But lately there have been rumors—from the Howler women at Nionel who took human mates—that you were something special."
In spite of himself, Tony felt a prideful chauvinistic stirring. "There's a certain allure," he ventured primly, "in novelty."
"Exactly! So what's wrong? This body I'm wearing doesn't appeal to you? Let me try another! You had a Howler wife, so I thought you'd go for something kinky. But I could be a human wench just as easily. Or ... since you were a silver-tore, how about a domineering blonde with wraparound breasts—"
"Please!" Tony edged away.
The houri's e
xpression became calculating. "What did you mean, about not being strong enough since you lost the tore? You're not burned out, are you?"
"Of course not! It's just—well, you see, when humans experience sex with you exotic women—that is, when we have the tore, most of us are able to carry on—uh—more efficiently. Whereas without it—and even with it, if one proves incompatible—I mean, there's a danger—a certain inhibiting factor takes over—"
"Ah-ha!" said Skathe.
There was a meditative silence. Feeling about in the dark, Tony found his pants and shirt. The houri made no move to stop him, and he gratefully slipped into his clothes, simultaneously slithering to the far end of the couch. The monster did not follow, but she never took her eyes off him.
Finally she said, "You have no significant metapsychic powers. Why did the Tanu give you a silver tore, then? For your prowess in the pleasure dome?"
Tony bridled. "Certainly not. I was a very important person in Finiah. As a metallurgical engineer, my professional skills were highly valued. I was in charge of the entire barium extraction operation."
"Interesting. That mine was our principal target, you know. Madame Guderian pointed out to us that without a barium supply, the Tanu are unable to manufacture new tores."
Tony had the distinct feeling that he might have said too much. He hastened to add, "The mine's completely buried in lava, you know. Not the remotest chance of its ever being opened again. Not in a million years."
"Or six," said Skathe.
Tony kept very quiet. The houri's body was melting, lengthening. The Dreadful Skathe looked down at him and asked quietly, "Why did you come through the time-gate, Tony?"
"Well ... it was very commonplace, really. My lover told me she was leaving me for another chap, my immediate superior. We three worked together in the same facility, you see, and there was no question of their leaving. The situation became quite unbearable."
"So you ran away."
"Actually, I tipped the pair of them into an eight-hundred-meganewton forging press."
The monster's eyes bugged. "Te's titties!"