the world. It’s as if an outside force is deliberately fracturing us, revealing the worst elements of our society and nature. Queen Evetéria may not be the freshest flower on the Tighris family tree, but she tries very hard, and she feels her lack of control just as painfully as any of her more capable ancestors might have. And she knows all too well—and understood the fact long before you emphasized it the other day—that her death could mean the end of all her family has struggled to achieve. The little men who want to occupy the Tiger Throne are none of them her equal. Only Lady Karlyna possesses, in my estimation, the intellect and ability to hold this country together, but she has the least chance of any.”
“What do you suggest that I do, Lord Gronos?”
I heard the cawing of a crow somewhere off to my left, and then another, far away to my right.
“If you can contribute to the political stability of the state, you have an obligation to do so. If you cannot, you should leave, preserving what you can of your life and knowledge.
“For myself, I shall remain at Court until they inter my body under the earth—which I think is not long distant. But your recent revelation at the Council meeting makes you a target, Morpheús.”
“But I thought the proceedings were secret,” I said, startled at the notion that someone would want to harm me. I’d always eschewed training in the martial arts—perhaps I’d erred in slighting my education in this arena.
“Ha! Already the rumors have started, and they’re wilder by far than your prognostications. The factions will want to confirm or deny what they’ve heard—and the only way they can do that is by taking you prisoner. You should return home today. You can better defend yourself there.”
“What does the Queen say?”
“She agrees. You have her leave to go.”
I sighed. “I just don’t know what to do, Sir.”
Having spent my life furthering my own ambitions, it seemed, well, unseemly suddenly to decamp—and lose all of the time and effort I’d put into the project of creating myself.
Then I heard a rustling in the hedges to my left, and I felt the Chancellor’s bony fingers grab my elbow and pull me to a halt.
“Quiet!” he hissed. Then: “Listen!”
He did something that I couldn’t see with his other hand and muttered a word that I couldn’t hear, and then I discerned quite clearly the mumbling of two other low-pitched voices.
“Where are they?” one said.
“I can’t see anything in this damned mist,” the other man replied.
“Jocko’s on the other side somewhere. Maybe we should call him.”
“And tip off the marks?” the second man said. “Keep your voice down!”
Slowly we edged backwards along the path, retracing our previous steps. Lord Gronos pointed at a mid-sized stone barely visible on one side of the walkway, and motioned me to pick it up. I threw it as hard as I could in the direction we’d previously been traversing, and could hear it crashing through the hedges.
“They’re over there!” the first man said. “Come on!”
“That will keep them busy long enough for us to escape,” the old man hissed.
When we were safely back in the palace, Gronos turned to face me in the entranceway before heading back to his quarters.
“Everyone says that you have a singular talent, Master Morpheús, one that has not been evident here in many generations. I’ve seen it displayed only twice, and on both occasions, I was greatly impressed by your workings. Can you do more with your ability than play parlor games with the Queen? Maybe you need to look within, before you can look without. If you can so clearly envisage the future, why can’t you shape that future? Instead of being a Hypatomancer, perhaps you should become a Hyphainomancer, a Weaver of dreams—dreams that we can all share and believe in.
“But I’m just an old man living out his final years. What do I know, anyway?”
And then he kissed me on both cheeks and walked away.
I never saw him again in my life.
But I thought to myself then—and retain the thought even today—that he knew a great deal more than I, about most everything. The country of old men is visited all too seldom by the young, who perhaps envisage in those ancients’ physical and mental decay their own Ultima Thule; but miss the fact that the fallen arches of elderly feet have trodden the very same paths that their juniors now traverse; and that, for the merest of kind words and a tad of patience, the latter could have derived much wisdom from their elders, and avoided repeating the mistakes of an earlier generation.
Such has been the saddest observation of our fathers and grandfathers, but like so many other truisms of life, is forgotten anew with each washing of the spheres. All I knew after talking with him was that my own trial was yet to come—and I dreaded it.
CHAPTER FIVE
“’TWAS A VILE, VICIOUS THING”
Scooter and I transited home to Barstölný in Southern Kórynthia early that afternoon, and I wasn’t sorry to go. People were now looking at me in very strange ways, to the point where even the wherret was commenting on their bizarre behavior.
“What’s the matter with them, Master?” my familiar asked, after one such encounter with a comely lass, who made an effort to slink away from us as we passed by her in a Palace corridor.
“Maybe they think we’re infested with cooties,” I said.
“Cooties? What’s that?”
“Blood-suckers.”
“Wherrets don’t tolerate such intruders.”
“You’re covered with fur, and you don’t get cooties?” I reached around and plucked something off Scooter’s right forelimb. “Then what’s that?” I asked.
“What’s what? What did you find?” The creature frantically started examining itself, contorting its legs into seemingly impossible formations, until I could no longer restrain my mirth.
“Verrry funny!” Scooter said. “Ha…ha…ha. You humans have no perspective whatsoever. To willingly torment an intelligent being physically smaller than yourself…well, it displays, at the least, a lamentable absence of dignity.”
I was laughing too hard to respond.
“Harrumph,” it finally said. And then it started pouting. Wherrets can pout with a great deal of energy. It just makes them funnier.
* * * *
Upon our arrival, I began activating the more advanced features of my home’s defensive system. This included blocking potential visitors from even reaching the house proper without my permission. My small estate was surrounded by what appeared to be a stone wall, but was actually more sophisticated than that. The main bronze gate, when secured, could not be forced by physical might, although any shield can be penetrated psychically, given enough time, energy, and knowledge.
