Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Chapter 4

Maggie was not impressed by Felph’s palace, nor was she impressed by the local mode of travel. The florafeem she, Gallen, and the bears rode thundered over a redrock ridge the color of flame; the roaring clack of the thousands of fanlike wings on the florafeem’s underbelly had dulled her hearing. The beast handler, who rode beside her, was a man named Dooring. He spoke loudly.

Dooring had explained to her that the florafeems were native to Ruin, strange creatures that sucked nectar from the dew trees out in the tangles. Big animals. In shape they resembled some strange flower, with four “wings” shaped like petals, but the wings did not flap. Instead, thousands of bony fanlike appendages under the creature’s rigid surface fluttered at a tremendous speed, creating enough upward force to keep a florafeem aloft. On top, the creature’s skin seemed to be only a thick membrane over an upper frame of cartilaginous bone. That membrane was covered over by grasslike purple hairs, and small creatures lived on it.

The florafeem measured some fifty meters in diameter. This beast had a saffron-colored silk pavilion erected on its back.

Dozens of blue-scaled birds swooped and dived around the florafeem, feeding off insects that lived on its back, giving high, croaking calls. In the pavilion behind her, Maggie was vaguely aware of Gallen, resting his hand on her back, sometimes massaging her weary muscles.

The bears, Orick and Tallea, both lay on their paws, staring ahead, tired.

The journey to Felph’s palace had taken nearly three hours, and Maggie’s back felt stiff from sitting. Though she was past the point in her pregnancy where she should have felt morning sickness, she’d been fighting nausea for the past two hours. A dozen times she wished that she and Gallen had refused to travel by florafeem. The idea had seemed quaint upon invitation, yet she hadn’t known how unbearable the journey might be. Still it was not the discomfort of the journey that unsettled her on the final approach. It was Felph’s palace.

As she topped the cliff, she saw it shining among the fields ahead like something from a fairy tale, yet utterly unlike anything so … insignificant. Felph’s palace was enormous-all carved from rose-colored sandstone on three sides of a mountain. The palace gleamed like a moon, for all along the base of it, thousands of brilliant lights shone, illuminating even the dusty skies above. The walls of the palace rose perhaps a thousand meters high, and it was impossible to imagine how thick they might be. The walls weren’t perpendicular, for stone piled so high could not have supported the structure; instead the walls climbed at a steep slope, and every fifty meters would be a small road or trail carved along the exterior of the castle.

An ornate fence made of stone pillars bordered each road. On the walls above each road, gargoyles and angels were carved in bas-relief, engaging in scenes hellish and heavenly. Water cascaded over the walls in dozens of places-from a pot held by a gaggle of demons, from a cloud that served as a stool for a thoughtful angel. The water was captured and reused hundreds of times to utterly astonishing effect, for as the lights shone on the palace, the falling waters cloaked the stone in shimmering wonder.

The beast handler next to her, Dooring, had been talking almost nonstop until a few moments earlier. She almost thought of him as some artificial intelligence, its processors broken, verbally spewing out everything it knew. Maggie realized he had quit speaking so she wouldn’t be distracted by his voice on first sight of Felph’s palace. Now he stood, gesticulating wildly at the pillars and verandas, the glorious towers and the glittering stained windows.

“Look at that! They’ve got the lights on for you-and even the waterfalls. What a treat! Have you ever seen anything like it? Look at that statue! Incredible!”

“How many people live in the palace?” Maggie asked.

She imagined that this palace could easily house a million souls.

“Six,” Dooring shouted. “And a handful of us servants. Felph hardly ever sleeps in the same room twice! Oh, would you just look at that! And here comes Brightstar over the mountains behind it. Incredible!” He slapped his forehead, continuing his monologue.

Indeed, Ruin’s small dark sun was setting, and its twin star, which the locals called Brightstar, was rising gloriously over the hills.

At the base of the mountain Maggie spotted a cloud of dust. Golden worker droids shone among the dust like beetles, scurrying about. Maggie counted hundreds of droids that must have been carving these rocks for centuries.

Dooring the beast handler kicked the creature with his heels, just above its huge central eye. The florafeem thundered down. A single vaulted opening at the base of the mountain provided an entrance hundreds of meters high and at least three hundred wide.

There, in the sky, flapping his wings, was Felph’s handsome son Herm, who had come personally to Maggie’s camp to invite them to dinner, giving vague hints of a possible offer of employment. He hadn’t said what the job would consist of. Apparently to discuss such matters prematurely would flout local customs.

Herm flew just ahead of the florafeem, a brilliant glow globe in hand, and led them through the air.

Maggie felt … annoyed. All this ostentation. All this waste. On the two dozen worlds she’d visited, Maggie had never seen anything like it.

Felph was obviously vain, possibly mad. Dooring had told Maggie that Felph relied almost solely on droids for servants. Though Dooring worked for the old man, he hadn’t personally seen Felph in a dozen years. Instead, Felph’s passions in life seemed to be the study of history, and engineering his own genetically upgraded children.

If Herm, with his wings, was an example of Felph’s handiwork, she wondered at his purposes. Herm, a painfully thin man, had hair of darkest brown that framed a handsome face, and his eyes were like twin pieces of palest green ice. But most curious about him was the enormous wings, sweeping up from his back, all feathered in beer brown with splotches of white. He wore a pair of clean blue tights, and had on a nice white tunic, stiff with embroidery about the neck, cuffs, and waist. Herm seemed bright, energetic, intelligent, and he affected a slightly superior smile. He seemed to be only a slightly altered human.

But from her work with the aberlains of Fale, Maggie knew better. He’d have to be incredibly strong to fly with such mass. His bones would have to be hollow, which meant that his immune system might be vastly different from a human’s. She suspected that Felph would have simply resorted to a nanotech analog for that immune system, but she didn’t know.

More troubling than Felph’s engineering his own children was the fact that Lord Felph made Herm wear a Guide.

Maggie had worn one once, only for a few days; the memory horrified her. The artificial intelligence in the Guide linked directly to the brain, so that when Maggie wore one, she could not control her own muscles. The Guide even controlled her desires, at times, when her master wanted.

Maggie could imagine nothing a father could do that would be more cruel than to enslave his children in their own bodies.

Maggie suspected she would detest Felph. The vanity of such a man.

Yet as they thundered through the first set of walls, then rose up to one of perhaps a hundred gorgeous verandas where the spraying fountains shone, Maggie recognized one important fact: Lord Felph had money, enough money to ensure that she got the best medical help possible when she delivered her child.

So she had to wonder. Could she endure working for a man she would hate?

The florafeem thundered to the ground in a broad veranda, settling next to four other florafeems. Apparently some other guests had already arrived.

Maggie dismounted shakily, walking to the edge of the creature’s broad, gravelly back, then glancing down. It was a good three-foot drop, and in her tender condition she didn’t want to jump. She looked over her shoulder, saw half a dozen other florafeems floating over the valley. They looked like giant flowers blown on the wind, the tall pavilions gleaming like crimson and golden stamens at their centers.

Herm himself walked up and took Maggie’s hand, helped her from the beast.

Herm spoke a gracious welcome and bid the guests enter, waving under the wide stone arches toward a glittering chamber. Enormous tables held piles of food among dozens of candelabras, and several other guests had begun snacking near those tables.

Herm guided Maggie, Gallen, Orick, and Tallea to the center of the great hall, nodding as he walked toward various small knots of people. A ragged foursome of men appeared, from their dirty and tattered tan outfits and numerous weapons, to be soldiers fresh from the tangle. The group looked toward Maggie, and she inwardly cringed. Something about their eyes, their unblinking eyes, unsettled her.

“Poachers,” Herm whispered.

“What do they poach?” Maggie asked.

“Qualeewoohs,” Herm said. Maggie thought it repugnant that anyone would resort to eating a sentient alien species. As if reading her thoughts, Herm whispered. “They kill them for their spirit masks-and for any artifacts they might be carrying.”

He nodded toward a knot of men and women talking at another table, people who looked almost as dirty as the poachers. “Xenobiologists and paleontologists.”

Most of the rest of the people milling about-perhaps a dozen or two-all wore the same black tights and golden tunics that Dooring wore. Maggie recognized it as something of a servant’s uniform.

“How many people on planet?” Gallen asked.

“Maybe a hundred,” Herm answered. “At least it was close to that at last count, though doubtless some have died. Most are like those you see. Lord Felph employs a few workers, and we have some scientists and treasure hunters. Some are just recluses and madmen.”

Maggie hadn’t imagined that so few people would live on a whole planet. True, they were in the Carina Galaxy now, having fled the Milky Way, and true, Ruin was on the far frontiers even of the Carina Galaxy. But a hundred people?

Outside, the other florafeems began to land, and people off-loaded. Most were dirty hunters and field scientists. Maggie took a quick guess, and imagined that eighty or ninety people must have already arrived.

A small gaggle of locals crowded around to meet Gallen’s group. The four were, apparently, the first strangers to visit Ruin in several years. Their appearance caused a stir.

Maggie took a place to one side of the great hall, waiting for locals to come by so Herm could make introductions. Here, in this stately palace, the crowds looked out of place. They were a sweaty, begrimed lot. No charitable sentiment on Maggie’s part could disguise the fact that most of these folks didn’t need introductions to Maggie so much as they needed introductions to a bar of soap.

Tentatively, the people of Ruin introduced themselves. From the far side of the room Herm spotted a fellow and waited for him to approach. “I fear,” Herm whispered, “that you’re about to discover why my father doesn’t appreciate visitors.”

No sooner had he whispered these words than a smelly man with unblinking eyes came and took her hand, bowed low, and kissed it. “Rame Onowa,” he said in a high voice, “at your service, ma’am.”

He glanced up to Herm, waiting for the winged man to make a more formal introduction. “Rame is an itinerant cave dweller-cum-philosopher,” Herm said, “who lives in the ruins out near, the Yesterday Hills.”

Rame was suitably attired in a hooded robe of moldy blue hair. His narrow hatchet face was covered with a beard and grime. His teeth were more orange than yellow. “So pleased to meet you,” Rame said, now pumping her hand vigorously. “So pleased to meet such a beautiful, beautiful woman. You’d … you’d certainly make a fine decoration for any man’s cave Miss, uh Miss …”

“Maggie O’Day,” Maggie answered, trying to pull her hand away.

“Ah! A beautiful name,” Rame said, then glanced toward Gallen and the bears. “So tell me, Maggie, what brings you to Ruin?”

Rame stood close and peered into her eyes, unblinking, as if trying to peer beneath any layers of deceit, and Maggie tried to pull her hand back. Suddenly, a memory but two weeks old flashed through her mind, terrifying her.

Never before had Maggie heard a war band of Vanquishers in flight: now she understood why men called these aliens dronon.

The falling sun of Avendon lay on the ragged gray hills, creating a cold silver blade of light on the horizon. In that blade of light, Vanquishers flew in such vast numbers they looked like a row of thunderheads stretching over the hills, their black carapaces glinting in the dying sun. Their flashing amber wings limned the clouds with a sickly yellow hue; even kilometers away, the beating of their wings created a deep moaning that was not quite song, not quite a sound of pain. Almost mechanical.

Machines. They were as mindless and unyielding as machines.

The Lords of Seventh Swarm. Maggie took one last glance at the dronon over her shoulder. The cloud of warriors sped forward. So close. So close. Out over the prairie, wind stirred clouds of pollen from the purple sage.

Maggie ducked into a gully, gasping, the scent of sage and dust thick in her throat. She put a hand on her swollen belly, holding the son who waited to be born. Behind her, Gallen stopped. He raised a hand to shade his eyes, half clutched it into a fist, shielding his eyes, then just held it for several seconds, so it became a gesture of denial, as if with one hand he could hope to hold the swarm at bay.

Sweat streamed down Maggie’s face. Her heart pounded. Her mind was numb from too many sleepless nights, from hours of running. Maggie couldn’t imagine the Vanquishers being more than ten kilometers out, flying fast. Maybe closer.

After months of nightmares in which the dronon caught her in darkness, then tore off her arms, it looked as if Maggie’s worst fears would come to pass. She fought her panic, but she was too battered to be tough anymore. She looked frantically for a place to hide.

“Hurry, my love,” Gallen urged, trying to steer her downhill. Maggie stumbled with weariness. “The gate must be here. The map says we’re right on top of it.” He clutched a map in one hand.

In the shadows of a creosote bush, a sparrow peeped querulously.

A whining sound approached overhead, the hum of a dronon antigravity drive. Maggie glanced up. A bullet-shaped vessel hurtled over the rise, its fore-end cluttered with sensor arrays. It was a dronon Seeker, a machine that hunted by scent.

A Vanquisher straddled the Seeker, hugging the vessel. The dronon’s wings were folded back, its head low against the frame of the Seeker.

It was the demon that haunted Maggie’s dreams, hurtling ‘toward them in the darkness like the angel of death. Its huge front arms, its battle arms with their serrated edges, were poised above its head, ready to chop down. The Vanquisher shouted in its own language. Maggie could not understand it, but dozens of mouthfingers beneath its jaws thumped loudly over the thin membrane of its voicedrum; the banging of its voice echoed over the gully, a sound of warning. Maggie looked for her reflection in its faceted eyes. Its translucent wings buzzed in a blur.

Beside her, there was a movement and a flash as Gallen spun and fired his pulp pistol.…

Maggie pulled her hand from Rame’s, lurched back, blinking tears, trying to recall what question the madman had asked her. The fear of the dronon weighed heavily on her, as heavily as it had two weeks earlier when they’d finally escaped Avedon only to find that the world gate they’d walked through led to a planet in the Carina Galaxy. The Lords of the Seventh Swarm had been so close on Maggie’s trail, had come so close to blocking all their exits, that Maggie convinced Gallen to borrow a space cruiser from the Tharrin governors on Certes, fly off into the frontier worlds of the Carina Galaxy, where Maggie hoped to give birth to her child in safety. Out here, there were no world gates. Travel between worlds might be more difficult, but at least, Maggie hoped, the dronon would not be able to track her so easily.

Indeed, they’d come to Ruin at the behest of the governors of Certes. The planet was not listed on any official star charts.

“I, uh, I uh, didn’t mean to frighten you,” Rame said as Maggie backed away. “I’m sorry.”

“We’re just here for a visit,” Gallen interrupted the two, taking Maggie’s hand, holding it, so that Rame would quit pawing at her. “We wanted to see the ruins.”

But Rame looked at the fear on Maggie’s face, and it seemed that he knew better.

“I’d take care of you,” Rame said. “If you were my woman, I’d take care of you.” He reached up with one grubby hand, as if to run his fingers over the smooth skin at the hollow of her throat. “Come see my cave,” he whispered urgently. “You’ll like my cave. It’s peaceful there. Got a waterfall in the back of it. There, in the dark places, I could teach you the secrets of the Qualeewoohs.” He stared at her, unblinking.

Gallen edged forward, almost blocking Rame with his own body. Maggie was not afraid of the man, not really.

There was a look of … peace in Rame’s dark eyes. A look of total contentment and surrender. Almost, Maggie wanted to fall forward into those eyes to feel what Rame felt. She caught herself and pulled away, wondering if Rame had some odd power, wondering if he’d purposely triggered those dark memories in her.

But she couldn’t imagine such a thing. No. She’d been having anxiety attacks like this for the past several weeks. It was the stress that caused her agitated state. The constant fear and running.

Herm pushed himself between Rame and Maggie, disposed of the man by saying, “Rame, would you be so kind as to wait on the veranda? The High Confab is coming, and we need someone to offer the proper greetings when she lands.”

“The High Confab? Here? Tonight?” Rame asked, his eyes growing impossibly more and more huge under his hooded cloak.

Herm said, “Yes, her attendants said she would come tonight, and she’ll need a proper escort.”

With a throaty cry of astonishment, Rame turned and trundled toward the veranda, to a set of stone perches where visiting Qualeewoohs might land.

“Who is this High Confab?” Orick the bear asked. For the past several minutes, he’d been sniffing around, watching the folks. No one had spoken to him, and he’d seemed more interested in food than conversation anyway.

“A figment of Rame’s hallucinations,” Herm told Orick, “a Qualeewooh who visits him in his dreams. Like many of the mad folks around here, Rame sleeps with a Qualeewooh’s spirit mask over his face. If you aren’t mad already, such things will drive you that way soon enough.”

A moment later, a beautiful woman appeared through the crowd, as brilliant and extraordinary in her brown silks and diamonds as the other folk were plain.

She must be one of Felph’s children, Maggie realized. No one else looked a thousandth so elegant. She appeared to be no more than twenty, yet her eyes spoke of wisdom beyond her years. Auburn hair cascaded down her back to her waist, and her eyes were clear light brown.

Maggie realized that Herm had disposed of the madman just in time for this woman to make her appearance. Herm introduced her, with a slight, mocking smile, “May I present Hera, Felph’s fourth.”

“Fourth?” Gallen and Maggie said, confused.

“Fourth created being,” Herm said. “Informally, we call Lord Felph our ‘father,’ but I didn’t want to confuse you. We’re his creations, we have no mother or father in the common sense of the word.”

Maggie looked up to the Guide that Hera wore in her hair, a simple circlet of silver. “He calls you his daughter, yet he makes you wear a Guide?” Maggie said, disapproval giving an edge to her voice.

“What loving father wouldn’t want to control his child’s thoughts?” Hera said. “It keeps me pure.”

Maggie grimaced, “It keeps you bobbing like a marionette on your strings, you mean.”

Hera fidgeted with the diamond rings on her fingers. “My father has our best interests at heart. He desires good for all people.”

I’m sure, Maggie almost said. But showing such sentiments would accomplish nothing. Felph’s children were his creations, mere things. Perhaps the girl was so naive, she believed the propaganda Felph fed her.

Or perhaps I’m wrong about him, Maggie wondered. Perhaps a loving but misguided father might seek to control his children this way.

“Maggie meant no disrespect,” Gallen said. Hera studied his blue eyes, long golden hair, broad shoulders. Maggie had seen that spark of interest in other women.

At that moment, Hera’s eyes went unfocused, and she immediately turned and marched toward a graceful staircase near the middle of the room.

“You must forgive us,” Herm apologized. “Lord Felph has sent word that he desires our presence. He wishes us to make an appearance en masse. Apparently he did not know Hera had already come down to the party. Please, forgive us.”

The winged man flushed in embarrassment, then flew swiftly up to the top of the staircase and waited for Hera to join him.

Then they disappeared into a door that opened seamlessly from the wall.

Somehow, Maggie was horrified by this. The poor girl, she thought. Lord Felph didn’t bother to ask her to come to him, simply ordered her Guide to bring her, so that in the midst of a conversation, Hera abandoned her guests.

Yet either Hera was too dumb to know how Felph abused her, or she wasn’t able to voice her own pain.

Lord Felph and his children did not come down immediately. For ten minutes Maggie waited.

Then suddenly music swelled all through the great hall-a stately march with many ringing bells. At the top of the grand staircase, white lights shone brilliantly, and the seamless hole opened once again.

Lord Felph came out. He was an old man, Maggie saw at once, stooped and graying. With rejuvenations and life extensions, the body he wore could easily have been a thousand years old. Maggie doubted it was his first. He wore no mantle of authority, made no show of ostentation in clothing. He wore only a simple frock of dark gray, much as if he were a monk back on Maggie’s home world. He wore no jewelry. The only glimmer came from his dark blue eyes, which glanced out over the crowd knowingly.

Yet as his children came out behind, each one shone. Though he lacked ornamentation, he lavished it upon his creations. A woman came to his beckoning arm, a woman with silver hair-not the silvering of hair crone gray with age, but rather a genuine silver sheen, as if it had been spun of metal. She wore a stunning dress of turquoise blue that flashed as she moved, yet Maggie’s gaze was drawn more toward the woman’s eyes. She studied Maggie and Gallen frankly as she descended the staircase.

Maggie felt a physical wrenching. Turn away. something in her mind told her. Turn away. Don’t let her see you.

For the woman’s eyes pierced Maggie, inspected her, and dismissed her all in a glance.

“Felph and Arachne, hooray for Felph and Arachne!” the employees cheered, shouting and clapping. Their jubilant cheers were answered by more subdued clapping from the scientists and poachers and eccentrics in the crowd. Maggie thought the employees’ level of enthusiasm sounded odd, strained. Perhaps Felph expected such accolades from them.

Behind them marched Herm, all dressed in a new outfit of elegant black, looking debonair.

Following him came Hera, and on her arm a tall man with a broad chest, incredibly handsome, with long flowing hair, a beardless face with strong jaws, and eyes of such a piercing black that they seemed to glitter like jewels. His light gray jacket and white pants all somehow worked together so that as Maggie looked at him, her gaze riveted to those dark and disturbing eyes.

“Hooray, hooray for Zeus and Hera,” the people all shouted, and Maggie had an odd sinking feeling. She knew little of mythology, only what her mantle downloaded to her, and she was disturbed by the naming scheme Lord Felph had chosen for his children.

Last of all, came a young girl, no more than twelve or thirteen. She was both lithe and strong, with a very athletic build. Yet, apparently without her even knowing, she was the most beautiful woman Maggie had ever seen. Her long amber hair fell in a casual braid over her left shoulder, and her eyes were of the deepest gray. She was more full-bodied than a Tharrin, physically stronger and more sensual. Indeed, she seemed the perfect combination of strength, grace, and sensuality, though she was not even well into her teens. Maggie watched Gallen’s eyes: he seemed riveted by her face, the astonishing sweetness of her smile.

Her appearance brought an enthusiastic explosion of shouts from the townsfolk. “Athena! Yay for Athena!” they cheered.

The people of Ruin all continued applauding Lord Felph and his creations. Audio recordings played the sounds of thousands more people cheering and clapping, so that the walls fairly shook with the tumult, though fewer than a hundred guests had gathered.

Suddenly, out through the east windows on the veranda, fireworks began to explode, shooting high into the air, forming brightly colored rainbows that whistled over the verandas and waterfalls.

Lord Felph descended.

Maggie found it hard to look at Felph’s children. She found she was shaking, and her breath came ragged. Slaves. They were all slaves, wearing their silver Guides.

As Felph and his creations reached the bottom of the stairs, Felph raised his hands, and the people of Ruin quieted their cheering. Felph stood nodding and blinking pleasantly in the bright lights, while his servants circled him and continued clapping, shouting, “Jolly good! Well done! Hurrah for Lord Felph!”

Felph held his hands higher, begging them to quiet.

“I hope you have all had an opportunity to eat, and to meet the newest additions to our planet-our guests!” Felph waved toward Gallen, Maggie, and the bears. His voice came out somewhat weak and raspy.

This was followed by more enthusiastic cheering and much nodding of heads, including a few calls for a toast.

But, Lord Felph would have none of that.

“And now, my good friends, my employees,” Felph called, raising his hands for silence, “I would like you all to leave!” This last word he shouted, so that it echoed from the ceiling of the room. The music had just stopped, and the echoing booms of the fireworks died away in Maggie’s ears.

Moreover, the cheering died on the lips of the planet’s people, and all of them stared, gawking at Lord Felph.

One flabby fellow called into the silence, “But ah haven’t ‘ad a chance for a bite, yet!” though he stood with both fists holding a silver platter generously filled with cakes and meat.

“I brought you here to meet my guests, nothing more,” Lord Felph said with a flourish of his hand, waving the people all away. “I gave you ample time for that task, and if you squandered it, it’s your own damned fault. As for food, if you like, you may each grab a plate as you depart, and drain a mug, too. The florafeems are still on the terrace, and they’ll depart in a few minutes. It has been so nice of you to come. But really, you must leave, now!”

The guests stared in dismay, unwilling to believe Lord Felph would throw them out.

Felph hunched, alone in the spotlight. All around the room, it began to grow ominously dark as lights dimmed, so that only the old man could be seen. He eyed the guests, chin thrust out, glaring as if in mute rage, till at last he could hold still no longer.

He stomped his foot on the floor with all his might, so that the sound of it rang out. Then he bent forward and began howling, a strange, inhuman shout that sounded of genuine pain. “Noowwwww!” he cried, stomping again. “Get out nowwww! I can’t bear your presence any longer. I can’t tolerate it! Get out while you still can! Nowwwww!”

As the old man bent low, his face twisted in pain, his eyes stared out accusingly on the people of Ruin.

Maggie’s heart began pounding in fear. Lord Felph panted, and slobber dripped down his chin.

“Careful, careful,” someone whispered in the crowd behind Maggie, “he’s in one of ‘is moods!”

Those closest to Felph began backing away slowly, raising their hands as if to prove that they weren’t armed. Perhaps they imagined he had a weapon and would begin shooting. Those near the tables of food each grabbed plates, while some of those closest to the doors actually took off sprinting for the terrace. One woman fell and shrieked as a heavy man trampled her, then several other people began screaming, perhaps believing that Felph had unleashed some security droids on the crowd with orders to shoot.

In moments the room emptied of all but Maggie, Gallen, the bears, and Felph’s children. Even of Felph’s servants, only the faithful Dooring remained, smiling broadly.

In the sudden silence, Felph began chuckling under his breath, the sound reverberating from the high walls. He then stared at the retreating figures, who turned to shadows out on the veranda.

He eyed them not with the lack of composure typical of madness, but instead with the steady and calculating gaze of a stage performer gauging his audience.

He glanced at the tables filled with refreshments tumbled in disarray. Then he gazed back at the fleeing people and murmured, “So go the gray masses, marshaled alternately by gluttony and terror. Pity the weak.”