Free Carnivores of Light and Darkness by Alan Dean Foster Page A

widened. “So you have seen a little of the future yourself.”
    “Nothing of the sort.” He crossed his arms casually over his chest and leaned back in the chair, rocking it gently. “It is the name of the woman abducted against her will, and was confided to me by the dying soldier Tarin Beckwith. It comes from my past, not my future.”
    “Well, it lies here in your future as well.” The sensuous seer bent forward over the cube. “She is being held captive by a small man who commands great evil.”
    “Hymneth the Possessed.”
    “Yes.” Rael frowned as she studied the rutilated innards of the crystal. “There swirls about him an air of great confusion. I cannot tell if he possesses this evil or is possessed by it.”
    “I would think the two would go together,” Ehomba commented.
    “As often they do, but the confusion and uncertainty here are profound beyond anything I have ever encountered before.” She glanced up from the cube, and her eyes were a pale yellow, like those of a cat. “I am a strong woman, Etjole. Confident in my abilities, secure in my knowledge. But I would never, never consider challenging a power like this that I see here. Because its body is hidden from me and impenetrable to my arts, I can discern only its effects. There are many methodologies of evil, and this one exceeds my comprehension. It frightens me even to apperceive it. I don’t think I want to look into it any deeper. I might come to understand how it works.
    “If you continue onward and manage to confront this Hymneth person-creature, you will be utterly destroyed. Try as I might, I can foresee no other outcome.” She sat back from the cube and closed her eyes. With her sigh, the air in the room seemed to surge around him and then relax, like a wave rushing onshore only to lose all its substance and energy to the thirsty sand.
    “I would have hoped,” he told her in a small masterpiece of understatement, “for more encouraging words.”
    Her eyes opened. They were blue again. “I like you, Etjole Ehomba. Simple or not, smelly or not, it would trouble me to see you come to harm. But I can’t stop you, nor would I if I could. Each of us chooses our own adjectives, our own modifiers. I choose to sit here, in this comfortable, sunny place, and parcel out my learning to those who will listen and pay. It’s a good life.” For the second time he saw the twinkle in her eyes. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to stay with me a while. Given enough time, I might be able to talk you into saving your life.”
    Her body manifested itself in quiet ways that could not be ignored, not even when she was revealing matters of great import. He had been aware of it ever since she had entered the room. Now her gaze metamorphosed from penetrating to inviting, and the way she shifted in her chair produced sounds he could only hear with organs other than his ears. They were loud, and forceful, and they threatened to drown out his own inner voice.
    “I can think of nothing that would please me more,” he told her frankly, “if only I was not committed to fulfilling this obligation, and if I did not have a woman waiting for me in my house.”
    “Your house is a long way from Kora Keri, Etjole. Who is to say what your woman does to keep boredom from her door when you are not there?”
    “I cannot worry about that.” He rose. “I prefer not to create pain without foundation.”
    Smiling insidiously, she fondled the crystal cube. The inclusions within seemed to torque slightly in her direction. “I could look and try to learn the answer to that question for you.”
    He turned away from her. “I would rather not know.”
    The seer Rael sniffed, unable to mask her derision completely. “So you choose blissful ignorance. It strikes me a poor way to go into battle.”
    “Who said anything about bliss? And is this a battle I am fighting here? If so, whom am I battling? There is no one present except you and I, and I do not want to