Allan Cole - The Gods Awaken

Safar and Iraj found themselves suddenly frozen by her eyes. And from some place close by they heard drums and horns and the rhythmic slap of bare feet dancing in sand.

Then they felt their wills draining away as they heard ghostly voices lift in song:

"Her hair is night,

Her lips the moon;

Surrender. Oh, surrender.

Her eyes are stars,

Her heart the sun;

Surrender. Oh, surrender.

Her breasts are honey,

Her sex a rose;

Surrender. Oh, surrender.

Night and moon. Stars and Sun.

Honey and rose;

Lady, oh Lady, surrender.

Surrender. Surrender … "

The others in the room heard nothing but the rumble of the volcano. But they were transfixed by the strange sight of Safar standing frozen in the pool of light cast by the queen's shining eyes.

Then the area around his body started to shimmer and his form became hazy, less substantial.

Palimak suddenly realized what was happening. He leaped to his feet, drawing his knife.

At the same time the Favorites caught the deadly magical scent and shouted a warning.

But Palimak was already driving forward-sprinting past the startled onlookers.

And then he grabbed Yorlain by the hair and slit her throat!

She fell to the ground, flopping horribly. But not one drop of blood came from the gaping wound.

Leiria cried, "What have you done, Palimak?"

He didn't need to answer-for in the next moment there was a loud thunderclap and the ghostly figure of the Goddess Lottyr rose from Yorlain's corpse.

All her many mouths howled fury, poison dripping from her sharp fangs. Her six arms waved violently as if she were going to attack.

Eeda and Jooli recovered quickly enough to join Palimak's protective spell.

Then there was a bright flash of light and she was gone.

Iraj/Safar suddenly jerked, coming out of their trance.

Palimak stepped over Yorlain's body to confront the strange thing his father had become.

"Tell them!" he demanded. "Tell them who you are!"

The thing that wore his father's body only sighed.

And when it replied it spoke in the voice of Iraj Protarus: "Safar always did say you were a bright lad."

It was Leiria who first understood what had happened. She would have recognized that voice in a cave black as midnight.

She gasped in shock. "It's Iraj!" she cried.

And she drew her sword and charged.

Kalasariz never slept. Sleep was something that had been lost to him many years before when he'd pledged himself to the Spell of Four and became a shapechanger along with Iraj, Fari and Luka.

The spell had been broken, but in his new entity as a spirit-world parasite living within King Rhodesa€™

body he was permanently wide awake.

Unlike his former spell brothers, the spymaster considered this a blessing. In his previous existence he'd always hated the moment when the gods of slumber commanded his obedience. His father had been a seventh-generation priest. More to the point: his very name, Kalasariz, was the Walarian term for priest.

His mother had been a temple harlot enslaved to the priests and he had been seeded during a priestly orgy whose purpose was to cleanse sins by sinning. And to create sons for the priests to adopt and rear for their own holy purposes.

Kalasariz had soon learned he was better at ferreting out secrets to use against others than he was at religious scholarship. Better still was to forge those secrets into lies of solid gold. And Kalasariz had eventually sold out his own father with false charges that he was a heretic so that he might win his mantle as the supreme spy of all Walaria.

But deep inside Kalasariz he was still the son of a priest. And when he slept all his subsequent lies and murders sat heavily upon his soul. And so he'd always feared the night, because with it came terrible dreams of his transgressions, followed by imagined punishments for those sins.

Worse still, over the years those nightmares became increasingly and horribly complex because of all the enemies he'd made in his long career.

And so it was that when sleep overcame King Rhodes and he tossed and turned fitfully through the storm, dreaming bloody dreams much like those that had once afflicted Kalasariz, the spymaster was gleefully awake and guilt-free. Plotting his plots and conspiring in his conspiracies.

The best thing of all about his sleepless state was that he could keep constant control of Fari and Luka, who were enslaved in his ethereal belly. He kept their agonies constant and hot, so they didn't have time or energy to conspire against him.

Therefore, when Lady Lottyr came to him, spitting curses about Safar Timura and Iraj Protarus, Kalasariz was bright and alert and well aware that the goddess had suffered a defeat.

She called the incident in the castle a mere "setback," but he knew that this was only a hasty bit of fiction her pride had composed to lessen her humiliation. Failure and defeat dripped from every word she spoke.

"It was that demon brat Palimak who caught me out," she said. "Otherwise I would've crushed those fools who believe themselves to be the two kings Asper predicted would come."

Her six visages were terrible in their murderous beauty. And even though her visit to the spymaster was meant to be made in secret, she was so agitated that Rhodes would've been alerted to her presence if he had been awake.

Surely he would've caught the internal roiling Lottyr's frustration caused when she spoke to Kalasariz.

The spymaster's ambitions might have been badly harmed by this royal realization.

In all his days Kalasariz had never met another person-except for himself-as rightfully and unerringly on target as Rhodes was when he became suspicious.

Well, maybe more: There was Queen Clayre. Whose own suspicious nature made her son look like a naV ve peasant. But Lottyr had made her own false bargain with Clayre and had also cast certain spells that had dulled the witch's wary senses.

Lottyr laid out all the plans she'd heard the Kyranians discuss while she'd commanded Queen Yorlain's body.

"They'll attack the moment the storm ends," she said. "They're hoping to wound you severely, then withdraw. Negotiations will follow-all aimed at drawing things out long enough for them to strengthen their defenses."

Kalasariz asked, "Have you informed Clayre about their plans?"

"No," Lottyr answered, "but I intend to the moment I leave you. And when Rhodes awakes, I want you to instruct him."

A canny master of lies and half truths, Kalasariz knew very well that Lottyr had sworn to another bargain with Clayre. The goddess admitted as much when she spoke her puny lies, saying her pledge to Clayre meant nothing, while her promises to Kalasariz were solid as gold.

But which bargain would the goddess keep? Kalasariz knew better than to trust to chance for the outcome.

And so he said, "I have the advantage of long experience with Safar Timura. And also with Iraj Protarus.

They've never been defeated-especially when the two of them put their minds together."

Lottyr was angrily abrupt. "What of it?" she asked harshly. "They are nothing compared to me-the greatest goddess of the Hells!"

"Forgive me, Holy One," Kalasariz said, "but I'm only trying to point out that in any physical fight Safar Timura and Iraj Protarus are the likely victors. That is their history. Neither one has ever failed-even against each other. Timura defeated Protarus at Caluz. But Protarus, from what you say, now rules Timura's body. Tentative though that dominance may be.

"From what you've also said, they've made a pact with each other to oppose you. Isn't that so, Holy One?"