Inside the shrine’s chancery, it was quieter, shielded from the sky that heaved
with light and dark.
Niko shared his weapons, those Askelon had given him: a dirk to Tempus, the
sword to Janni. “But you have nothing left,” Janni protested in the urgent
undertone they were all employing in the shadowed corridors of their embattled
god’s earthly home. “I have this,” Niko replied, and tapped his armored chest.
Whether he meant the cuirass Askelon had given him, the heart underneath, or his
mental skills, Tempus did not ask, just tossed the dirk contemptuously back, and
dashed out into the murky temple hall.
They smelted sorcery before they saw the sick green light or felt the curdling
cold. Outside the door under which wizardsign leaked like sulphur from a yellow
spring, Janni muttered blackly. Niko’s lips were drawn back in a grin: “After
you, commander?”
Tempus wrenched the doors apart, once Janni had cut the leather strap where it
had been drawn within to secure the latch, and beheld Molin Torchholder in the
midst of witchfire, wrestling with more than Tempus would have thought he could
handle, and holding his own.
On the floor in the corner a honey-haired northern dancer hugged a man-child to
her breast, her mouth an “ooh” of relief, as if now that Tempus was here, she
was surely saved.
He took time to grimace politely at the girl, who insisted in mistaking him for
his god-his senses were speeding much faster than even the green, stinking
whirlwind in the middle of the room. He was not so sure that anything was