"We'd do without all of his well enough. But we're stuck with one another, forthe nonce. Unless, of course, you've a suggestion... some way to rid me, as thesaying has gone from time immemorial, of all meddlesome priests?"

The two were fencing with words, neither addressing the real problem: the stormwas being taken as an omen, and a bad one, on the nature of Theron's rule.

The aging general fingered a jeweled goblet whose bowl was balanced upon awinged lion and sighed deeply at almost the same time that Tempus's rattlingchuckle sounded. "An omen, is it, old lion? Is that what you really want-an omento make this a mandate from the gods, not a critique?"

"What / want?" Theron thundered in return, suddenly sweeping up the artsy,jewel-encrusted goblet of state and throwing it so hard against the farther wallthat it bounced back to land among the dregs spilled from it and roll eerily,back and forth in a circle, in the middle of the floor.

Back and forth it rolled, first one way and then the other, making a sound likechariot wheels upon the stone floor, a sound which grew louder and melded withthe thunder outside and the renewed clatter of hailstones which resembledhorses' hooves, as if a team from heaven was thundering down the blackened sky.

And Tempus found the hair on his arms raising up and the skin under his beardcrawling as the wine dregs spattered on the floor began to smoke and steam andthe dented goblet to shimmer and gleam and, inside his head, a rustle-familiarand unfamiliar-began to sound as a god came to visit there.

He really hated it when gods intruded inside his skull. He managed to mutter"Crap! Get thee hence!" before he realized that it was neither the deep andprimal breathing of Father Enlil-Lord Storm-nor the passionate and demandingboom of Vashanka the Pillager which he was hearing so loud that the shimmer and