"Not at the time, though. I hadn't even realized who I was when they attacked me. But it made it easier for me to hate them when I did learn."
"So, in a way they were right."
Pol took the rod into his hands and stared at it.
"I can't deny it," he said, finally. "But I didn't follow through on it. I've harmed none of them."
"Yet," she said.
He turned onto his side and glared at her, the covers slipping from his shoulder.
"What do you mean 'yet'? If I'd been that serious about it, it would have been my first order of business."
"But you still dislike them."
"Wouldn't you, in my position? So for as I'm concerned, they're not very likable people. And if they'd handled Mark a little differently, they probably wouldn't have him on their backs."
"They are quick to react to the unknown. Theirs is a settled way of life--traditional, slow to change. They saw both of you as threats to it and acted immediately to preserve it."
"Okay. I can see that. But I can understand something without liking it. I've called off the feud I almost declared on them. That should be enough."
"Only because you've got a bigger one on your hands. You know that if you don't destroy Mark he's going to destroy you."
"I have to operate under that assumption. He's given me every indication. The time is past for trying to talk with him."
She was silent for a long while.
"So why aren't you like the others?" he asked. "You were a friend of his and now you're hanging around with a dark sorcerer--helping me, in fact."
She remained silent. Then he realized that she was crying softly.
"What is it?" he said.
"I'm a pawn," she answered in a low voice. "I'm the reason you got involved--you were trying to help me."
"Well--yes. But sooner or later Mark and I would have met, and the results would probably have been the same."
"I'm not so sure," she said. "He might have been more inclined to listen to you if it hadn't been for me. But he was jealous. You might have become friends--you have much in common. If you had--think what an alliance that might have been--a sorcerer and a master of the old science arts--both out for revenge on my homeland. Now that cannot be, and the wheels are turning to bring you into a struggle to the death. Supposing I really hated you both? It wouldn't make a bit of difference--now."
"Do you?" he asked.
"...And I'd be damned if I'd tell you."
"You wouldn't have to sleep with me. Once those wheels are in motion a roll in the hay wouldn't alter them."
"It might make the winner more disposed to leave us alone, out of a certain fondness."
"And telling him about it might have just the opposite effect."
"It's a good thing I'm talking principles and not cases," she replied, touching his shoulder again. "As I said, I do feel like a pawn, though, and you wanted to know why. As for your last question, I was answering it as things could be, not informing you. It was the wrong question, anyhow."
"You're too tough to be a pawn," he said, "and you know who the only woman on the board is. And we can sleep with a sword between us if you want."
"It is not cold steel that I want," she said, moving nearer.
He saw a pale blue strand drifting by, but he ignored it.
Everything shouldn't be gimmicked, he thought. Should it?
He heard the voices again, in that place where he drifted between sleep and wakefulness.
"Mouseglove, Mouseglove, Mouseglove . . ,"
Yes. It was not the first time he had heard them--weak yet insistent, calling to him--and on awakening he always forgot the small chorus. But this time there seemed more strength to the calls, almost as if he might come away with the memory, this time...
"Mouseglove!"
He began to remember his circumstances, sprawled in the secret apartment atop Anvil Mountain, unwilling guest of Mark Marakson, a.k.a. Dan Chain, taboo-breaking engineer from the east village. He was trying to find a way out, past the man's gnome-like legions and electronic spies, trying to learn to fly one of the small craft--small, yes, not like the battle-wagons with the six-man crews, two cannons and a rack of bombs he had seen take off earlier, sailing in every which direction across the sky, rotors whirling, wings tilting all about them--small, just right for himself and the jewelled figurines which would make him his fortune....
"Mouseglove!"
He was moved a jot and two tittles nearer awakening yet still the chirping cries came to him. It was almost as if...
He tried. Suddenly, somewhere inside himself, he answered.
"Yes?"
"We bring warning."
"Who are you?"
Immediately, his dreamsight began to function. He seemed to stand at the center of a low-ceilinged room, illuminated by seven enormous candles. A figure, human in outline, stood behind each of them. The flames obscured the faces, and no matter how he turned or stared, nothing more of them was revealed to him.
"You sleep with the figures beneath your head," said the one at the extreme left--a woman's voice--and immediately he knew.
Four men, two women and one of uncertain gender, out of red metal, studded in peculiar places with jewels of many colors... Somehow, they addressed him now:
"We gained power when the Triangle of Int was unbalanced by the heir of Rondoval," said the second figure--a man.
"We are the spirits of sorcerers vanquished by Det and bound to his statuettes," said the third--a tall man.
"We exist now mainly to serve him or his successor," said the fourth--a woman with a beautiful soprano voice.
"We see futures and their likelihoods," said the fifth--a gruff-voiced man.
"We have come into your possession for a reason," said the sixth--of uncertain gender.
"...For we can to some extent influence events," finished the man on the right--the seventh.
"What is your warning?" asked Mouseglove. "What do you want?"
"We see a great wave about to break upon this plane," said the first.
"...At this place," said the second.
"Soon," said the third.
"...To settle the future of this world for some lime to come," said the fourth.
"Pol must be protected," said the fifth.
"...At this point of the Triangle," said the sixth.
A map was lying before him on the floor. It was actually a part of the floor, he now realized, cunningly inscribed. It seemed that it had been there all along. As he looked, one spot grew light upon it.
"Steal maps, steal weapons, take Mark's flier and go to that place," said the seventh.
"Take Mark's flier?" he asked.
"It is the fastest and is capable of the greatest range," said the first.
"Pol isn't a bad guy," Mousegiove said, "and I wish him no ill, but my intention is to get as far away from him and Mark as soon as I can, as fast as I can."
"Your willing cooperation would make things easier," said the second.
"...But it is not absolutely necessary," said the third.
"... As our power rises," said the fourth.
"I've never had booty talk back to me before," Mouseglove replied, "except for a parrot, when I was a lad. But that doesn't count. You're asking too much. I've led a dangerous life, but this was to be my last big risk. You are my retirement security. I want nothing to do with your breaking wave."
"Fool," said the fifth.
"...To think you have a choice," said the sixth.
"You have walked a charmed line since the day you entered Rondoval," said the seventh.
"We had a part in everything that brought you to this point," said the first.
"Even our theft," said the second.
Mouseglove chuckled.
"If I have no choice, then why do you request my cooperation?" he asked. "No. Perhaps I was manipulated up to this point. Now, though, I think you need my help and your power has not risen sufficiently to insure it. I'll take my chances. The answer is no."
Silence followed. He felt himself the object of intense scrutiny.