"No. Not Cat."

Cat's mom. Imara. The Godoroth had gotten to me first. But when I looked around I saw no one but Imara. We were in a place like the inside of a big egg furnished only with a low divan draped with purple silk. The light came from no obvious source. "What's going on?... "

"We will talk later." She laid a fingernail on my forehead, over that spot sometimes called the third eye. Then she trailed it down between my eyes, over my nose, across my lips. That nail felt as sharp as a razor. I shivered nervously but found her touch weirdly exciting, too.

"You have a reputation." Her hand kept traveling. "Is it justified?"

"I don't know." My voice was an octave high. I couldn't move. "Whoa!" That was a squeak.

"I hope so. I seldom get an opportunity like this."

"What?" I wasn't putting up much of a fight. This matronly goddess was about to have her way with me and, incidentally, establish her husband as my mortal enemy. There was no arrangement between them, only the arrangement Imar had with himself. Gods are always jealous critters, turning their spouses' lovers into toads and spiders and whatnot.

Which seemed of no particular concern to her. She had one thing on her mind and pursued it with a single-minded devotion more often associated with less than socially ept adolescent males. I began struggling too late. By then the inevitable was upon me. I had no heart for a fight. I hoped she wouldn't turn into something with two hundred tentacles and breath like a dead catfish.

I am one agnostic who got made a believer. I should have brought help.

If they were all that way no wonder they were always getting into trouble.

Panting, I asked, "You make a habit of just grabbing guys and getting on with it?"

"Whenever I get away long enough. It's one of the little rewards I permit myself for enduring that bastard Imar."

The Dead Man hadn't said anything about Imar's legitimacy. No doubt being a bastard was part of his divine charm.

"Please stop for a while. I'm only human." Imara seemed human enough herself, except for the scale of her appetites.

"For the moment, then. We have to talk, anyway."

"Right."

"Have you found the key?"

"Uh... " I was at a serious disadvantage here. I was getting sat upon at the moment. "No."

"Good. Have you bothered looking?"

Good? I ground my teeth. She was a goddess of some substance. "Not really. I haven't been given a chance."

"Good. Don't bother."

"Don't?"

"Ignore it. Hide out. Let it go. Let the deadline pass."

"You want to get kicked out of the Dream Quarter?"

"I want Imar and his band of morons to get kicked out. I've made arrangements. I've wanted to get shut of that belching idiot for a thousand years, and this is my chance."

She began numbering Imar's faults and sins, which reminded me of the main reason I avoid married women. I didn't hear one complaint that I haven't heard from mortal wives a thousand times. Apparently, being a god is domestic and deadly dull most of the time. Pile it on for millennia and maybe some divine excesses start to make sense.

Those recitals are boring at best. When you have no particular desire to be with the recitee they can become excruciating. Despite my improbable situation, my mind wandered.

I came back fast when she decided I had recovered. "Ulp! So you're gonna dump the Godoroth and sign on with the Shayir?"

How could she manage that? Any honest historical theologian will admit that deities do move shop occasionally, but the mechanism by which they do so eludes me.

"The Shayir? That's absurd! Lang could be Imar's reflection. Why would I want more of that? And his household has nothing to recommend its survival. Let them sink like stones into the dark cold deeps of time." She said all that in a sort of distracted, catechistic manner. Her mind was on something else.

Maybe the wrong gal got the temple whore job.

"You haven't communicated with the Shayir?"

"No! Shut up." She pressed her fingernails into my forehead again. I shut up. She took charge. She had her way with me for about a thousand years.

That molasses darkness reclaimed me eventually. The last I knew, Imara was whispering a promise that I would never be sorry if neither Lang nor Imar ever got hold of the key.

Why do these things happen to me?

41

I ached everywhere. I felt like I had done a thousand sit-ups, run ten miles, then finished with a couple hundred push-ups to cool down. I had bruises and scratches all over me. I was thinking about finding a new hobby. My favorite was getting dangerous.

Then once again there was a face in my face. This one was uglier than original sin. It was the face of a ratman that not even a female of his own kind could love. I grabbed him by the throat. Ratmen are not real strong. I held on while I climbed to my feet.

I had been lying on a bed of trash in an alley I did not recognize. The ratman had been going through my pockets. I relieved him of his ill-gotten gains. He wanted to whimper and beg, but I didn't give him enough air. I was in such a bad mood I considered putting him out of my misery.

My headache was back.

Though the world would be better off for his absence, I just slapped him silly. Then an idea occurred. An experiment to try. I didn't have much to lose. The gods all had a fair idea where I could be found.

I did a quick stretch job on a bit of my mystic cord, cut that piece off, tied it around the ratman's tail. He was too groggy to notice.

I got my behind moving. My feet worked hard to keep up.

Maybe the Godoroth would jump on a false trail.

I found myself on Fleetwood Place, one of the many short and lightly trafficked streets that enter the Dream Quarter. Fleetwood Place runs right through the Arsenal. Even now, with the war gone moribund, the place was going full blast. I don't know how the workers there put up with all the rattle and bang.

I darted from cover to cover, confident that a few hundred yards would get me into the safety of the Dream Quarter. During one pause two huge owls hurtled overhead, tracking a blur up the far side of the street. I grinned. Had to be Jorken, going for my fake.

A trickle of golden light leaked over the brick wall back up Fleetwood. That rustling-paper sound passed overhead. Hundreds of black leaves fluttered in a minor whirlwind. Wolves howled in the distance. I'd like to say dragons roared and thunder lizards stomped, but it did not get that dramatic.

I resumed putting one foot in front of the other as briskly as I could. A remote, foul bit of mind breath reminded me, Nog is inescapable. Nog didn't have much of a vocabulary.

As I ran I rehearsed what I had done to frame the ratman. Maybe I would work the stunt again, if I had to. I kept glancing back, expecting Jorken.

A huge boil of dirty brown smoke burst upward back whence I had come. Lightning ripped through its heart. An owl came flying out, folded up on its back, following a high ballistic arc. A thunderclap reached me moments later. And these were not phenomena that only I could see. People ran into the street to gape.

The Godoroth and Shayir were butting heads. I didn't wait to see if they got down to it seriously. I kept sucking wind and pounding leather. A wolf, or maybe a dog the size of a cow, hollered behind me. It was a cry whose tone said, "I got the trail, boss." I put my head down and went for new records.

I sensed something in front of me, a picket of shadow forming out of nothing, right in front of the line where I thought I would get safe.

That thing howled behind me. It was gaining fast. I didn't even try to zig, zag, or stop. I went for the hurdle.