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of them hanging with Lauren in the middle of what was clearly nothing. And
suddenly an enormous black-robed, faceless horror that rose up out of the
depths of Hell and was going to be a feature attraction in Pete s nightmares
for the rest of forever.
Then Lauren was holding a bazooka that appeared from nowhere, just like the
nightmare she faced. Pete couldn t get to her. He couldn t help her. He
couldn t even let anyone else know where she was that would betray any trust
she d placed in him.
She seemed to be holding her own. Or at least not giving up. But he couldn t
stand to watch anymore. He felt helpless, and he felt stupid for not
understanding where she was or what she was doing. He didn t know if he would
be able to re-create the link between the two of them once he let her go. But
he couldn t stand watching helplessly while feelings like swamp-bottom death
and just-past murder crawled out of the mirror through his fingertips and went
straight into his brain.
He considering going to Oria, but clearly she wasn t in Oria. He could do
magic in Oria, but if he tried following her to save her assuming that she
even needed saving, which was no sure thing he would probably do more harm
than good. He wished he could show the shit he d just seen to Fred, but Fred
still lived firmly within his  aliens-on-Earth worldview, and Pete wasn t
ready yet to bring him up to speed. But Fred had a really nice religious
upbringing that had introduced him to many strange, mystical concepts, and
Pete almost thought that Fred seeing Lauren in the lighted river, or Lauren
facing off with a bazooka against a Thing in Black could have made some sense
of things that left Pete flummoxed. Pete had been raised Default
Christian which meant that his parents had taken him in to have his head
sprinkled in some old-fashioned church not long after he was born, and that he
hadn t been inside a church since, except for weddings and funerals.
Yet what he d seen in the mirror had more than a whiff of the Mother Church,
and suddenly he regretted his lack of interest in things religious. He
wondered if maybe he hadn t missed something important. He didn t have time
for a Sunday school crash course at this late date.
He was, he thought, stuck with helping from where he was and with what he
knew.
And what he knew at least what he knew that might be useful to Lauren was
misdirection and deception.
 You use what you have, I guess, he said.
CHAPTER 10
The Wilds of Southern Oria
BAANRAAK, resting comfortably outside the entrance to his cave, enjoying the
sun on his hide and the redness that seeped through his closed eyelids, chose
not to stir himself to wakefulness at the approach of Rr garn. He had felt the
younger rrôn coming long before he flew into visual range. Rr garn had neither
subtlety nor grace; he rode the world as if he owned it, but more than that,
he rode it as if he wanted it to know he owned it.
Baanraak, who had learned the survival value of a low profile early in his
career as Master of the Night Watch, and who was the only master so far to
step down successfully rather than being removed from office by the extreme
measure of eternal annihilation, thought Rr garn had little chance even to
become Master of the Night Watch a position he loudly coveted before his
subordinates wearied of him and destroyed him.
Such loud and chaotic thoughts perhaps, Baanraak thought, I ought to save the
Night Watch the trouble and do the job for them.
Baanraak opened his eyes at the thunderous wingbeats over his head; another
foolish affectation. He could land without disturbing the leaves or the grass,
or even the dust if he was careful. He didn t disturb the mind with his
thoughts, he didn t disturb the world with his presence. Mostly any more, of
course, he basked he had grown weary of the game long before.
And now this twit wanted to drag him back into it.
Baanraak finally lifted his head from its comfortable resting place on his
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rump as Rr garn landed and studied the visitor with distaste. Rr garn had
dropped to the ground at an appropriately respectful distance, but then, he
wanted something. Baanraak could sift no actual respect from the noisy [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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