come to Marneri they bring bad news.”
“And with the news some urgent need of money, it is always the same,” agreed Chamberlain Burly.
Lessis turned upon them a simple smile. They protected themselves from what they knew was a subtle spell. Burly merely closed his eyes and thought of sex. Damn witches! But sex always worked for him in keeping the stuff out.
Damn witches!
“Alas,” murmured Lessis, in apparent total agreement. “It is true that the Sisters of my office bring bad news most often, when they bring news at all. It is our task to discover the plots of our enemies before they can be hatched. Thus do a small number of us keep vast forces of the enemy ineffective, even inert. Through intelligence operations we are able to nip many an enemy thrust in the bud.”
“Or so it is claimed,” said Burly. “But these claims are difficult to substantiate in every case.”
“Inevitably. The Sisters of the office work far from the safety of any desk where proofs might be manufactured. But would you have us cease to operate? Would you feel safer, Burly of Marneri, if the Sisters went not forth into the secret places of the enemy to seek out the evils hatching in those terrible shadows?”
“Bah, of course not,” grumbled Burly with a dismissive gesture.
“No, of course not,” murmured Lessis. Then her tone shifted to something sharper, which demanded their deepest attention.
“Listen to me, listen well, for I have recently returned from a major operation that we conducted in the depths of the subworld beneath the city of the skull, Tummuz Orgmeen.”
Horrified dread rose in everyone’s heart at that name, and they swallowed and stared back at her.
“In that hell upon the world, there are several hundred captive women. They are confined in grim holding pens, twenty to a cell, bearing imp after imp, until death releases them.”
There were visible shudders.
“How have so many been taken?” said General Kesepton.
Lessis shrugged sadly and seemed to convey the sadness of an entire world.
“Many have been bought from the Teetol, taken as captives from the frontier colonies. Others, sadly, were bought from the south, from Ourdh.”
“As before,” rasped Ewilra, “the Ourdhi sell their own women to the enemy. They are an ancient people with cruel, inhuman ways. They sell their own mothers to the enemy for a few pieces of gold and silver.”
Lessis refrained from comment. The problems in the ancient Empire of Ourdh were many and most resistant to solution. Lessis was always thankful that she was not attached to the effort made in Ourdh by the Office of Unusual Insight, the super secret service that Lessis actually worked for. The work in Ourdh was thankless in so many ways, for it dealt only with people, and the Ourdhi masses were quite intractable. Through countless aeons they had endured. Dynasties rising and falling endlessly down the centuries. This had bred a certain eccentric warp to their societies. Their cynicism and fatalism were extreme, their love of cruelty seemed bizarre to travelers from the other parts of the world. It was common for men in the villages to sell children to wealthy city folk who used them as they wished. The practice of eating the family pet, at least once a year, was widespread. The most popular sport among the poorest was rat fighting.
The tide of muttering concerning the Ourdhi subsided. Lessis spoke up again.
“In the cellars of Tummuz Orgmeen, the Blunt Doom is raising a great army of imps. It has also recruited a legion of fell men, renegades of the most evil spirit, who will happily do its work in subjugating and destroying other men. There are also many trolls, more in one place than I have ever seen before. I would expect the armies of the Blunt Doom to number twenty thousand full-grown imps by the spring. There will be more than two thousand trolls and many other monsters. The Blunt Doom has been experimenting with the codes of life. New horrors fill the
“And with the news some urgent need of money, it is always the same,” agreed Chamberlain Burly.
Lessis turned upon them a simple smile. They protected themselves from what they knew was a subtle spell. Burly merely closed his eyes and thought of sex. Damn witches! But sex always worked for him in keeping the stuff out.
Damn witches!
“Alas,” murmured Lessis, in apparent total agreement. “It is true that the Sisters of my office bring bad news most often, when they bring news at all. It is our task to discover the plots of our enemies before they can be hatched. Thus do a small number of us keep vast forces of the enemy ineffective, even inert. Through intelligence operations we are able to nip many an enemy thrust in the bud.”
“Or so it is claimed,” said Burly. “But these claims are difficult to substantiate in every case.”
“Inevitably. The Sisters of the office work far from the safety of any desk where proofs might be manufactured. But would you have us cease to operate? Would you feel safer, Burly of Marneri, if the Sisters went not forth into the secret places of the enemy to seek out the evils hatching in those terrible shadows?”
“Bah, of course not,” grumbled Burly with a dismissive gesture.
“No, of course not,” murmured Lessis. Then her tone shifted to something sharper, which demanded their deepest attention.
“Listen to me, listen well, for I have recently returned from a major operation that we conducted in the depths of the subworld beneath the city of the skull, Tummuz Orgmeen.”
Horrified dread rose in everyone’s heart at that name, and they swallowed and stared back at her.
“In that hell upon the world, there are several hundred captive women. They are confined in grim holding pens, twenty to a cell, bearing imp after imp, until death releases them.”
There were visible shudders.
“How have so many been taken?” said General Kesepton.
Lessis shrugged sadly and seemed to convey the sadness of an entire world.
“Many have been bought from the Teetol, taken as captives from the frontier colonies. Others, sadly, were bought from the south, from Ourdh.”
“As before,” rasped Ewilra, “the Ourdhi sell their own women to the enemy. They are an ancient people with cruel, inhuman ways. They sell their own mothers to the enemy for a few pieces of gold and silver.”
Lessis refrained from comment. The problems in the ancient Empire of Ourdh were many and most resistant to solution. Lessis was always thankful that she was not attached to the effort made in Ourdh by the Office of Unusual Insight, the super secret service that Lessis actually worked for. The work in Ourdh was thankless in so many ways, for it dealt only with people, and the Ourdhi masses were quite intractable. Through countless aeons they had endured. Dynasties rising and falling endlessly down the centuries. This had bred a certain eccentric warp to their societies. Their cynicism and fatalism were extreme, their love of cruelty seemed bizarre to travelers from the other parts of the world. It was common for men in the villages to sell children to wealthy city folk who used them as they wished. The practice of eating the family pet, at least once a year, was widespread. The most popular sport among the poorest was rat fighting.
The tide of muttering concerning the Ourdhi subsided. Lessis spoke up again.
“In the cellars of Tummuz Orgmeen, the Blunt Doom is raising a great army of imps. It has also recruited a legion of fell men, renegades of the most evil spirit, who will happily do its work in subjugating and destroying other men. There are also many trolls, more in one place than I have ever seen before. I would expect the armies of the Blunt Doom to number twenty thousand full-grown imps by the spring. There will be more than two thousand trolls and many other monsters. The Blunt Doom has been experimenting with the codes of life. New horrors fill the
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