thinning, unkempt mane to his scarred and twisted claws. He was a big man still,his power no mere memory, but fresh and flowing in corded veins and leatherysinews-big and powerful in his aged prime, except when seen in close proximityto Tempus, the avatar of Storm Gods on earth, whose yarrow-honey hair and highbrow free from lines resembled so much the votive statues of Vashanka stillworshiped in the land. Tempus's eyes were long and full of guile, his formheroic, his aspect one of a man on the joyous side of forty, though he'd seenempires rise and fall and fully expected to see the end of this one-to buryTheron as he had and would so many other men, with all their might ranged roundthem. And Theron knew the truth of it-he'd known Tempus since both wereseemingly of an age, fighting the Defender on Wizardwall's skirts when theRankan Empire was just a babe. The two were honest with one another when it waspossible; they were careful when it was not.

"Got a god to anger? We've got something mad enough to spit, I'll own," Tempusreplied. Now, Tempus knew, was not the time to raise false hopes of Vashanka theMissing God's return in a warrior who'd willingly and knowingly come to a thronewhose weight would kill him. It was the dirtiest of jobs, was kingship, andTheron had become the man to do it by default. "If it's Vashanka, then it's amatter between Him and Enlil. Theomachy tends to kill more men than gods. Don'tbe too anxious to get the armies' hopes up-the war with Myg-donia won't end bygods' wills, any more than it will by Nisi-bisi magic."

"That's what you think this infernal darkness is, then- magic? Your nemesis,perhaps ... the Nisibisi witch?"

"Or yours, the Nisibisi warlocks. What matter, gods or magic? If I thought hehad the power, I'd pick Brachis as the culprit. He'd do without both of us well