Wolves of the Gods

me?' he asked. 'I'm more than aware that he was wise and far seeing-but what you are speaking of would require so much specific knowledge of the future it defies imagination.'

'Oh, your name isn't in the book, my dear Safar,' Hantilia said. 'Although if you read deeply you'll see he predicted someone very much like you.'

She chuckled. 'However, I think he believed you would be a demon like him. Regardless, you're getting the wrong idea. There are no details in the book on exactly what to do when doomsday comes. As you said, how could he predict all the events that have occurred? However, there is a spell in the book we were instructed to perform when trouble began.

'When I cast the spell, I was immediately stricken with a terrible malady.' She shuddered at the memory. 'I was unable to move from my bed for many weeks and the whole time I suffered the most horrible visions. It's a wonder I wasn't driven insane. In fact, until you rode into the grotto just now I wasn't certain if perhaps I was insane. Anyway, when I recovered I knew exactly what to do-up to and including the Spell of the Great Sacrifice, which was the most important and frightening requirement. I don't know how this knowledge was passed on to me. The point is, the knowledge was there and I felt obliged to act on the plan.'

She hesitated, then said, 'Strange as it may seem, as time went by and different things happened, I suddenly knew what I had to do next.'

Hantilia smiled wryly. 'The appearance of the Lady Felakia was my own idea. Actually, when I was ill I did see her in my dreams. She was one of the nicer visionary beings to visit me. I built on that dream to convince my followers of the rightness of the cause. A lie, to be sure. One I'm quite ashamed of and my real self is probably suffering in the hells right now for that sin. And rightly so. But I had to turn my followers into zealots. For who else but a zealot would agree to shoulder the blame for the sins of all human and demonkind-and then commit mass suicide as penance?'

Safar thought of how he'd manipulated his own people to what he believed was for the overall good. He hadn't asked them to commit suicide … although perhaps he had. Look at the situation they were all in-trapped in the Black Lands with Iraj ready to pounce at any moment. The odds were so short it was a grim joke to call it anything else but suicide. Even worse, he wasn't done with his kinsmen yet. If they survived this test he'd have to ask even more from them.

'I see from the look on your face, Safar Timura,' Hantilia said, 'that you have some … experience, shall I say … in matters of manipulation to achieve your own ends.'

'That I do, Majesty,' Safar said fervently. 'That I do.' He collected himself, then said, 'I assume you were … uh … created by your … uh … living self, correct?'

'There's no need to spare my feelings, Safar,' Hantilia said. 'The real me no longer exists. And this image you see before you will vanish in a short while. But, to answer your question-Yes. She created me. I was placed here to await your arrival. The Great Sacrifice, you see, could only be performed in Caluz. Away from the machine and the Black Lands. Part of the spell's intent was to open a portal between the Black Lands to the shores of Caspan, where I was to greet you and instruct you further.'

'When I first met your creator,' Safar said, 'she told me it was vital that I destroy the machine somehow. Was that true, or only a necessary lie?'

'It was partly true,' Hantilia said. 'I don't know what was going through my real self's mind, since I wasn't there. But I suspect I told you that was my desire so you would think I had a selfish, and therefore believable, motive for my actions. After all, if I had told you I planned a mass suicide to assist you I doubt if you would have listened much further.'

Safar grimaced. That was certainly the truth!

'However, it is no prevarication that the machine presents a dire threat,' Hantilia continued.

'Regionally speaking, of course, since what happens to Esmir is happening everywhere else. From what I've been able to determine the machine is an open wound between Hadin and Esmir. If it isn't stopped, Esmir will cease to exist in not many years.'

'And if it is stopped?'

'Another decade or so will be added to Esmir's span.' The Queen frowned. 'But it won't do more than delay the inevitable. Unless you can find a solution to the disaster destroying this world, that is.

Frankly, I have grave doubts you can succeed. When you study the book I gave you, you'll see that my ancestor, Lord Asper, had the same doubts.

'There's a chance to save the world. But a very slim one, indeed.'

She gave another of her elegant shrugs. 'Destroy the machine, or don't destroy it. That's up to you. You will most certainly have the power to attempt it, thanks to the Spell of The Great Sacrifice.'

Palimak fidgeted on the bench. He was getting restless and a bit bored with all this talk of things that happened in the past. He was here for the future!

'When do we get to the Oracle part?' he asked. 'You know, when you tell us what to do to get to Syrapis?'

Hantilia smiled. 'Would now be soon enough?' she asked.

Palimak nodded. 'Maybe we'd better,' he said. 'Gundara and Gundaree say we don't have much time. I'm sorry everybody is dead and everything. Especially you. But we're not dead and I get the idea that any minute now you're going to go-poof! And disappear. Forever, probably.'

Safar frowned. Although his opinions were bluntly put, Palimak was right. Safar could sense the magical creation that was Hantilia fading in and out-growing a bit weaker with each cycle.

'How do we start?' he asked the Queen.

She nodded at the book he held in his hands. 'Give it to the boy and let him open it,' she said.

Safar did as she asked. Palimak held the book gingerly, a little nervous.

'Go ahead,' Hantilia gently urged. 'Open it, my dear.'

'Which page?'

'Let the book decide,' was Hantilia's only reply.

Palimak's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. 'I'm not sure I understand,' he said.

'Just open the book, dear one, and you'll see.'

Palimak took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. But being a child he went at the task perversely, carefully choosing a point about a third of the way through the book. He tried to pull it apart, but the pages stuck together and the book insisted on parting in the center.

The boy peered closely at the pages, expecting a miracle, but seeing nothing but a few poems.

'What do I do now?' he asked.

'Read one of the poems,' Hantilia answered.

He looked back down at the book, trying to choose, but the words seem to skitter across the pages.

Hantilia sensed his difficulty. 'Don't try to pick one,' she advised. 'Just open your mind to all possibilities.'

Palimak squirmed, impatient, wanting to tell her this was stupid. For not the first time, he wondered why witches and wizards didn't speak plainly. They always used such funny words that didn't really mean anything when he thought about them later. Like Hantilia saying he should 'open his mind to all possibilities.' How do you open a mind? It's closed up in your head, for goodness sakes. And as for

'all possibilities,' that was just plain silly. It didn't describe anything. Or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it described Everything. Was that what she meant?

Suddenly, to his amazement, words took form and a poem practically leapt from the page.

'This is great!' he exclaimed. 'What do I do next?'

'Read to us,' the Queen said. And so he did, chanting:

'The Gods are uneasy in their sleep.

They dream of wolves among the sheep.

Brothers in greed, kin to hate,

Wolves bar the path to Hadin's gates.'

As Palimak spoke the last words, red smoke whooshed up and he reflexively jerked his head back in alarm.

'It's all right, Little Master,' Gundara whispered. 'It won't hurt you.'

Palimak nodded and sat quite still, watching the smoke curling up like a snake. Then lips formed in the