was being taken as an omen, and a bad one, on the nature of Theron’s rule.
The aging general fingered a jeweled goblet whose bowl was balanced upon a
winged lion and sighed deeply at almost the same time that Tempus’s rattling
chuckle sounded. “An omen, is it, old lion? Is that what you really want-an omen
to make this a mandate from the gods, not a critique?”
“What / want?” Theron thundered in return, suddenly sweeping up the artsy,
jewel-encrusted goblet of state and throwing it so hard against the farther wall
that it bounced back to land among the dregs spilled from it and roll eerily,
back and forth in a circle, in the middle of the floor.
Back and forth it rolled, first one way and then the other, making a sound like
chariot wheels upon the stone floor, a sound which grew louder and melded with
the thunder outside and the renewed clatter of hailstones which resembled
horses’ hooves, as if a team from heaven was thundering down the blackened sky.
And Tempus found the hair on his arms raising up and the skin under his beard
crawling as the wine dregs spattered on the floor began to smoke and steam and
the dented goblet to shimmer and gleam and, inside his head, a rustle-familiar
and unfamiliar-began to sound as a god came to visit there.
He really hated it when gods intruded inside his skull. He managed to mutter
“Crap! Get thee hence!” before he realized that it was neither the deep and
primal breathing of Father Enlil-Lord Storm-nor the passionate and demanding
boom of Vashanka the Pillager which he was hearing so loud that the shimmer and