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every time we think wrong.
Not much finesse here, Martel.
Does Apollo need finesse? he responds to his own question.
Martel gestures for the other to continue. Even the Regent, bitch she is,
doesn't follow you in and out of bed, day on day, waiting, bounding till you
think wrong.
Neither do the gods, snaps Sylvia. Worse! The peach-dressed man hops off
the stool, well balanced despite the slur in his speech, and wheels toward
Martel. His right hand blurs as it slashes down through the heavy wood seat of
the adjoining barstool.
For an instant the two halves of the barstool balance, teetering in midair.
Then both sides crash to the floor.
Ha! The man vaults more than a meter into the air and onto the flat surface
of the bar itself. Behold the remains of Lendi the Terrible! Bar tricks! Once
I could do that to any man. But here. . . here. . . one can do nothing.
Nothing!
Sylvia retreats to the far comer of the bar, away from the splash of light
that sweeps out from the peach-clothed man who bestrides her bar.
Magnificent show, comments Martel dryly, Lendi, or whatever your real name
is. Apollo at his cruelest has a sense of restraint and drama. You're merely
burlesquing the whole business.
Martel finally stands, and as he speaks the darkness rises from the wood
surrounding him, draws in from the comers of the room to confer a solidity
upon him that leaves Lendi a tinsel shape.
You mock me. Therefore, you mock the gods. Stars comiscate from the ends of
Lendl's peach-lacquered fingertips.
I mock no one. I merely state what is obvious. Those who consider truth
mockery only mock themselves.
Meet your end, unbeliever! The tinsel stars at his fingertips turn brighter
before they arc toward Martel. Another one sent for an ordeal. . . or to test
you, Martel. Martel smiles, and, seeing that smile, Sylvia makes a sign, that
of the looped and inverted cross, and shudders in her corner.
Lendi, lost in his madness, straightens his right arm and flings a blaze of
fire at the shadowed figure that is Martel.
The missile, though brighter than the smaller stars that die in the darkness
around Martel, slows, dims, and flickers out long before it crosses the short
distance to Martel.
A second, even brighter, starbolt flares toward Martel, and, in turn,
extinguishes itself. Lendi drags forth another from the field of Aurore.
In turn, Martel reaches for a certain energy, turns it to twist and isolate
Lendi from his energies. He steps toward the star-thrower.
Do you believe in darkness, Lendi the Terrible? Have you seen sunset in a
shadow?
The darkness crashes like a wave, like a falling cliff, over the demigod. As
it flows back to the place from which it rose, it carries the paralyzed
demigod, lacquered fingers and starbolts included, back with it, back into the
depths of time and space.
Releasing his hold on that comer of the universal darkness, Martel sits back
down at his table and studies the flattened waves as they break up on the
Great East Beach. He sips the last of the Springfire.
As an afterthought, he touches Sylvia's thoughts and removes the memory of a
peach-and-crimson-clad demigod. That loss of memory will protect her and
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confound Apollo. For it has to be Apollo or the Smoke Bull who sends such
emissaries.
He lifts the empty jasolite beaker, knowing Sylvia will refill it, waiting for
the warmth of the Springfire to drown the memories that the demigod has
raised. . . again.
So easy to strike out. . . but you don't combat fire with fire . . . not
unless you want to burn both out. Still, you remember, don't you, Martel? He
nods to his own thoughts and takes a sip from the latest beaker Sylvia has
placed before him. The images flash across the dark screen within his mind.
Kryn, who was spark, and Rathe, who was fire, and Thetis, who is sea, and
Emily, who is deceit, and more, and Apollo, who is the cruelty of desert sun,
and. . . and. . .
He sips the Springfire, and lets the darkness curl around him, settle deeper
within.
XXXVIII
As he walks to the exit portal Martel can sense the morning shift, engineer
and faxer, at the other entrance, the land-side one, waiting for the clearance
that he has left.
For all they see. I'm a myth, a creation of the nightly fax show. Martel the
mysterious, featured on Path Seven and seen occasionally in Sybernal, if the
rumors can be believed.
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