“Brother me no brother, brothers,” he replied. “These people have at least not tried to slay me. That is more than I can say for any of you except Luvah. And they are not to be despised by the likes of you. They are masters of their own little worlds. You are homeless and trapped like dull-witted fat geese. So do not be so ready to scorn me or them. You would be far better off if you would condescend to make friends with them. The time may come when you will need them very much.”
Theotormon, his flipper pink and half-grown out now, was squatting in the inch-deep pool. He said, “The whole accursed lot of you are doomed; long may you scream when Urizen finally closes the trap on you. But this I will say for Jadawin. He is twice the man any of you are. And I wish him luck. I wish he may get to our beloved father and exact vengeance from him, while the rest of you die horribly.”
“Shut your ugly mouth, you toad!” Ariston cried. “It is bad enough to have to look at you. My stomach wrings itself out when I see you. To have to hear you, you abomination, is too much. I wish that I were in my own lovely world again and had you at my feet and in chains. Then I would make you talk, monsterling, so fast your words would be a gabble for mercy. And then I would feed you inch by inch to some special pets of my own, oh, beautiful little pets.”
“And I,” Theotormon said, “will pitch you over the side of this floating island some night and will laugh as I watch you flailing at the air and hear your last scream.”
“Enough of this childish bickering,” Vala said. “Don’t you know now that when you quarrel among yourselves, you delight the heart of our father? He would love to see you tear each other apart.”
“Vala is right,” Wolff said. “You call yourselves Lords, makers and rulers of entire universes. Yet you behave like spoiled, and evil, brats. If you hate each other, remember that the one who taught you this horrible hatred, and who now has set the stage for your death, still lives. He must die. If we have to die ourselves in making sure of his death, so be it. But at least try to live with dignity and so dignify your deaths.”
Suddenly, Ariston strode towards Wolff. His face was red, and his mouth was twisted. He towered over Wolff, though he was not as broad. He waved his arms, and the saffron robes, set with scarlet and green imbrications, flapped.
“I have put up with enough from you, detested brother!” he howled. “Your insults and your insinuations that you are better than us now because you have become less than us-one of those animals -have enraged me. I hate you as I have always hated you, hated you far more than the others. You are nothing-a … a … foundling!”
With this insult, the worst the Lords could conceive, for they could think of nothing worse than not to be of the true lineage of Lords, he began to draw his knife. Wolff bent his knees, ready to fight if he had to but hoping he would not. It would look very bad for the Lords if they brawled in front of the abutal.
At that moment, a cry arose from the gondola on the prow of the island. Drums began to beat, and the abutal dropped what they were doing. Wolff caught hold of a man running by and asked what the alarm was about.
The man pointed to the left, indicating something in the sky. Wolff turned to see an object, dark and fuzzy against the red dome of the sky.
VI
Even as wolff ran towards the bridge, another object appeared. Before he had reached the gondola, he saw two more. They made him prickle with uneasiness and a sense of strangeness. He could not identify the reason for this at first. But before he reached the gondola, he knew. The objects were not drifting with the wind but were coming in at right angles to it. Something was propelling them.