him. Brill spoke again, this time in Basic. His voice had lapsed into the singsong tones of a chant:
"Oh Great One, who comforts us,
King of all holy places,
Lord Tern the Almighty,
Come, we ask you, hear our prayers."
The elders repeated the chant in a chorus of mixed high and low tones, their voices echoing around the chamber. The deacons back against the wall remained silent. Brill spoke again:
"Hear this our song to you,
Monarch of monarchs in whose name
Our enemies are slain.
We praise thee!"
This last was followed by a sudden clapping of hands that made Quinton jump a little. The elders echoed the chant. Then High Elder Brill knelt down on the paved floor in front of the chauka and held his hands out to it with palms open, as if he were warming them over an open fire. The elders began to chant:
"Lord Tern, Lord Tern, Lord Tern . . ." Brill reached to his throat, and Quinton thought at first he was going to unclasp the robe. Then he realized the High Elder was removing the
Godstone. Brill fondled the round disk and fitted it into the palm of his hand as if it offered cool comfort. Through all this the elders continued the droning chant. Then Brill reached out slowly and brought the Godstone into contact with the rod protruding from the edge of the chauka. Quinton heard a faint snap\
"Lord Tern, Lord Tern . . ."
Quinton swallowed. The skin of his face felt hot and dry, and he decided he had seen as much of
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this ceremony as he wanted. He lifted the gun and carefully eased the nozzle out between the rods of the grillwork. His thumb moved to the firing stud. But once again he hesitated, telling himself that the boy stood too close and might be hit by the beads. Another part of him admitted that he was only making excuses. He was an expert with the scatter gun; he could easily hit Brill without endangering the boy. The truth was, Quinton had killed only on two other occasions, and both times he had done so in defense of his life. He didn't relish the thought of shooting High Elder Brill from a hiding place.
High Elder Brill is sick, he reminded himself. He is infecting the entire planet of Clarion with his sickness.
"Lord Tern, Lord Tern,
Lord Tern, Lord Tern':'
The chant was building in intensity. High Elder Brill's hands wove a pattern in the air above the dish of the chauka. Quinton's thumb exerted pressure on the gun's firing stud—then his eyes jerked back to the chauka. The large dish had begun to change. He strained to see. Something was taking shape in the center of the dish, but he couldn't quite fix his eye on it. The image was slippery, like a reflection in a rippling pond.
"Hear our prayer, oh holy king,
Lord Tern the Almighty.
Smite those who would forsake thee!"
After the last rousing chant, Brill and the rest of the elders fell silent. All their attention went to the chauka. The swirling haze in the shallow dish began to take form and substance.
Quinton stared, gripped by a sudden, overWilliam Greenleaf whelming sense of dread. Then the object in the dish snapped into focus. A small sound escaped Quinton. He dropped the gun and put his hand to his mouth, turning it so the flesh of the palm was pressed between his teeth. He bit down until the blood ran. When that wasn't enough to stifle the terror that crawled through him, he opened his mouth and screamed.
Chapter One
"IS THAT HOW IT STARTED, GRANDFATHER?" The old man stirred in his chair and looked down at the girl, who sat cross-legged on a heavy rug at his feet. She seemed disappointed.
"What about the player's magic and Jacque the Fearless, who struck down the evil ones with fire from his hands?" She was a twelve-year-old with short dark hair and a pixie face and the watchful, gleaming eyes of her mother. Her name was Danita.
"The story began when Cleve Quinton was killed in the sacred chamber," the old man answered.
"Borland Avery came to Clarion a few months later. But there's something you have to remember." He paused, wanting her to understand this above all.
"Dorland Avery was a player but he was human. So was Jacque Hakim. That's what made them special. Gods can do anything. Humans have to work harder to accomplish miracles."
Dorland Avery stood motionless in the center of the stage with his feet slightly apart and his arms stretched out toward the audience. He was a strik9
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10___
ing figure in his player's garb: loose-fitting white jumpsuit with black accents on sleeves and pant legs, wide black belt, a white headband with a silver medallion. Colors flashed around him and reflected off the curtained backdrop, changing rapidly through red, green, blue and orange with the beat of the music. He was deep in the player's trance. In the glass-enclosed control booth above the stage, Paul Jurick took his eyes away from Dorland and looked out over the audience. Nearly twenty thousand tonight, another full house. It was too dark to see their faces, but he knew from the absolute stillness that they were caught up in Dorland's performance.
"Take a look," said Jeffrey Hanes from the chair beside him. Hanes had been scanning the darkened auditorium with night goggles. Now his attention was on something in the balcony, far out behind the booth. He handed the goggles to Paul. "Upper level, fifth row on the left. A man with a beard." Paul swiveled his chair around to take a look. The goggles gave a clear image but filtered out colors to leave everything in shades of gray. He counted the balcony rows and found the man.
"What about him?"
"He just came in," Hanes said. "Late for the show. He looks nervous. And that outfit—he isn't from around here, that's for sure."
"Neither are we," Paul pointed out. "Last time I checked, being from someplace else wasn't a crime." The man in the balcony sat stiffly in his chair, arms thrust out with his hands grasping his knees. He stared fixedly at the stage. Paul studied what he could see of the face behind the beard. "He looks nervous about something, but not dangerous."
"The most effective killers never look dangerous." Paul lowered the goggles and looked sideways at
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11
Hanes. Hanes was a small, intense-looking man who seldom smiled. Like Paul, he had served in the Guard. But while Paul had been punching computer keys and checking supply orders for clerical accuracy, Hanes had been chasing Fringe outlaws in a Guard patrol ship. Four years ago he had gotten his belly full of that, and Paul had hired him to take charge of Dorland Avery's private security team. He took his job seriously, but in Paul's opinion he had a tendency to overreact to anything he thought to be even slightly out of the ordinary.
"We get threatening calls all the time," Paul said.
"There're a lot of nuts out there. So far they haven't had the guts to follow through."
Hanes kept silent, but Paul knew he wasn't
convinced. The message that had come through the hotel switchboard three hours before the show was brief and to the point: if Dorland Avery performed at the hotel's main auditorium tonight, he would be killed. Period. No reason was given, and no conditions—and of course the caller had not identified himself. Dorland knew about the call, but that hadn't stopped him from going on with the show. Even Paul was beginning to take such threats almost casually. They came with the job for wellknown entertainers, especially psi-players. Paul lifted the goggles again to look at the man in the balcony. "Anyway, he's too far from the stage to do anything."
"Not if he planted something earlier," Hanes pointed out. "An explosive, or a gas canister. He could have put it on the stage and set it to go off from a remote trigger." Hanes reached for the communicator on his belt, flipped it open and issued a few brief orders to the men he had stationed in the balcony. Then he turned to look down at the stage. "He's almost done, isn't he?" Paul swiveled back around. The brilliant colors had given way to subdued violets and blues as the 12_________________William Greenleaf