The lights kept growing brighter, the chant kept growing louder. Now Blade could make out words, and understand them. Once again Lord Leighton's computer had done its incomprehensible work on his brain, altering it so that he understood and responded in the language of the new dimension, however strange it might be.

The chant was a repetition of a single set of sentences, in a complex and varying pattern. Blade could pick out at least three different parts, and every fourth repetition they seemed to shift key entirely.

Over and over again the words came:

«Hail, flower of life! Hail, flower of death! We come to you in the service of Ayocan. We come to you in the judgment of Ayocan.»

Ayocan? thought Blade. King, priest, saint, devil, god, spirit? And the flower of life/death? Blade had a sudden chilling thought. Could the «flower» be the one growing on the bushes where he was lurking, the bushes with the narcotic sap? There didn't seem to be anything else living here that might match the description. And what were the people approaching across the lake planning to do with the bushes?

He had no time to answer these questions, or ask himself any more. Suddenly even more yellow-orange light was shining from the lake. Narrowing his eyes against the new glare, Blade saw that behind each of the nine original lights a second one was now burning, brighter than the first. Then the original lights all went out, suddenly, simultaneously, with almost military precision. Now Blade could see what was approaching him across the lake-and who.

Chapter 3