ENTOVERSE

“VISAR, do we have to cut things that close?” Hunt asked shakily.

“Sorry about that. I’m still experimenting with the dynamics of this place Things that moved got longer, Hunt remembered.

“What kind of cowards are you?” the noble shouted. “That’s just a man. One man!”

A hail of spears and darts came; all were deflected or fell harmlessly. The giant, whom Hunt had mentally dubbed Agamemnon, advanced menacingly, drawing his sword. Reassured that God was indeed on his side, Hunt stepped forward with a new feeling of confidence to meet him.

“Die, puppet of pretenders!” Agamemnon cried, swinging.

“Not today, I think, thank you,” Hunt said, and snapped his fingers. The sword turned into a vine of pink flowers, which coiled itself around Agamemnon’s arm. Agamemnon stopped, staring at the flowers in confusion, then shook them off and stamped on them.

“Getting the hang of it now,” VISAR said.

“Yes, well, do you think you could remove this chap to a safer distance?”

“No problem.” An invisible force swept Agamemnon un­ceremoniously across the platform and over the edge. He hit the ground with a mighty, metallic crash and sat up, dazed and bewil­dered.

“The others are a bit too close for comfort, too,” Hunt said. Agamemnon had just started to pick himself up when the rest of the soldiers who had been up on the platform cascaded down on top of him.

“How’s that?”

“Not bad.”

The bearded man below, who had spoken of himself in Hunt’s mind as Shingen-Hu, was pointing up at him and calling out to the crowd. “Behold the angel that was foretold! See how the servants of treachery are powerless before him!”

“How do we know what they’re saying?” Hunt asked VISAR. “You can’t be translating. You’re new here, as well.”

“Your thought patterns are coupled to an Ent-wired neural system that includes a local speech center. It’s the same as the reason why Ents can understand Jevienese when they emerge.”

Deprived of his soldiers, the noble was cringing back among the executioner and his minions for protection. Hunt turned the knives they were holding into cucumbers and their jerkins into coats of thick molasses, then collided them all together so that they fell, writhing and adhering helplessly. Starting to enjoy himself, he turned the chains of the three unfortunates tied to the stakes into garlands of butterflies, which dispersed and fluttered away.

“So these people would be able to understand me?” he asked

VISAR.

“They should.”

“How much more can you give me in the way of background data?”

“Not a lot. I’m mainly manipulating physical data patterns. It needs processing through a nervous system to interpret what they mean.”

“We need Nixie here, then.”

She appeared beside Hunt, wearing a Greek chiton turned up and held by a girdle to form a short tunic falling to just above the knee; she was shod with laced buckskin. She looked like representations of Artemis, the virgin huntress. Hunt couldn’t help smiling at VISAR’s appalling choice. A murmur went up from the crowd.

“Another angel descends! My words shall be vindicated!” Shin­gen-Hu cried out. The crowd was impressed, clearly; but from what Hunt could see, not as much as he would have expected. Below the platform, the main body of soldiers had shown some initial confusion, but was steadying again as the occupants of the carnage came tum­bling out.

“What can you make of this?” he murmured as Nixie took in the scene. “We’ve got gentry down there with the troops, and a chain gang over there. Good guys, bad guys, which are which? What’s going on?”

“The ones getting out from the carriage are priests from the city,” Nixie said. “Their logo has a green crescent, the sign of Vandros. Eubeleus uses the same sign, so they must be his buddies here.” She surveyed the results of Hunt’s impromptu handiwork. “It looks as if you got it right.”

“I don’t like the kind of party this was about to be.” So saying, Hunt turned the weapons of the remaining soldiers below into a kitchen-garden variety and the chains of the prisoners into laurel leaves. The prisoners scattered them to the ground and lifted their hands, gaping down at themselves and at each other, wondering at their sudden freedom.

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