May,Julian - The Adversary

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The Adversary

Book 4 of the Saga of Pliocene Exile

by Julian May

Version 1.0

Synopsis

THE GALACTIC MILIEU AND THE

PLIOCENE EXILE

The Great Intervention of 2013 opened humanity's way to the

stars. By the year 2110, when the action of the first volume in

this saga began, Earthlings were fully accepted members of a

benevolent confederation of planet colonizers, the Coadunate

Galactic Milieu, who shared high technology and the capability

of performing advanced mental operations known as meta-

functions. Genes for the five principal metapsychic abilities—

farsensing, coercion, creativity, psychokinesis, and redaction, or

healing—had been part of human heredity from time immemo-

rial; but the mental powers were at first only rarely manifest,

remaining mostly latent until evolutionary pressure resulted in

increasing numbers of operant human metapsychics, being born

late in the twentieth century.

The five founding races of the Galactic Milieu had observed

the slow metapsychic development of humanity for tens of thous-

ands of years. But it was not until a small group of beleaguered

pioneer operants broadcast a desperate telepathic appeal that

the Milieu finally intervened in Earthly affairs. After some

debate, the galactic confederation decided to admit Earthlings

into the Milieu "in advance of their psychosocial maturation"

because of the vast mental potential of humanity, which might

eventually exceed that of any other race.

In the hectic years following the Great Intervention, the

mundane problems of humanity seemed all but solved. Poverty,

disease, and ignorance were wiped out. With the help of the

nonhumans, people from Earth colonized more than 700 new

planets that had already been surveyed and found suitable.

Earthlings also learned how to speed the development of

their metapsychic powers through special training and genetic

engineering. However, even though the number of humans with

operant metafunctions increased with each generation, in 2110

the majority of the population was still "normal"—that is,

possessing metafunctions that were either meagre to the point

of nullity or else latent, unusable because of psychological

barriers or other factors. Most of the day-to-day socioeconomic

activities of the Human Polity of the Milieu were carried on by

"normals," but human metapsychics did occupy privileged posi-

tions in government, in the sciences, and in other areas where

high mental powers were valuable to the Milieu as a whole.

At only one period between the Great Intervention and 2110

did it seem that the admission of humanity to the Milieu had

been a mistake: This was in 2083, during the brief Metapsychic

Rebellion. Instigated by a group of Earth-based humans led by

Marc Remillard, this attempted coup narrowly missed

destroying the entire Milieu organization. The Rebellion was

suppressed by loyalist humans, who included Marc's own

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brother, Jack, and steps were taken to insure that such a disaster

never would occur again.

A hundred or so battered survivors of the Rebellion managed

to evade retribution by following Marc Remillard through a

unique escape hatch: a one-way time-gate leading into Earth's

Pliocene Epoch, six million years in the past. Eventually the

Rebels settled on Ocala Island, in a part of North America that

would one day be called Florida. Well equipped with sophisti-

cated Milieu gadgetry, they lived in isolation for twenty-seven

years while their leader made a futile search of the Pliocene

galaxy with his artificially enhanced farsenses, seeking another

planet inhabited by metapsychics with high technology. Marc

Remillard never gave up his dream of human domination of the

galaxy—not even when his old allies despaired and their children

openly opposed the plan.

In the Galactic Milieu, six million years into the future, the

crushing of the Metapsychic Rebellion signalled the start of a

new Golden Age for humanity. Human metapsychics achieved

Unity—assimilation into a near-mystical mental fellowship of

the Galactic Mind. Nonmetas on the planet Earth and its hund-

reds of interstellar colonies enjoyed unlimited lebensraum,

energy sufficiency, the challenge of settling and exploiting new

worlds, and citizenship in a splendid galaxy-wide civilization.

But even Golden Ages have their misfits: in this case, humans

who, for one reason or another, were temperamentally unsuited

to the rather structured social environment of the Milieu. These

malcontents chose to exile themselves by passing through the

time-gate that led to an Earth six million years younger.

The time-gate was discovered in 2034, during the heady years

of the scientific knowledge explosion subsequent to the Great

Intervention. But since the time-warp opened only backward

(anything attempting to return became six million years old and

usually crumbled to dust), and since it had a fixed focus (a point

in France's Rhone River Valley), its discoverer concluded that

it was a useless oddity without practical application.

After the death of the time-gate discoverer in 2041, his widow,

Madame Angelique Guderian, learned that her husband had

been mistaken. The fair numbers of malcontents in the develop-

ing Human Polity of the Milieu were willing to pay handsomely

to be transported to a simpler world without rules. Geologists

and paleontologists knew that the Pliocene Epoch was an idyllic

period just before the dawn of rational life on our planet.

Romantics and rugged individualists from almost all of Earth's

ethnic groups eventually discovered Madame's "underground

railroad" to the Pliocene, which operated out of a quaint French

inn located outside the metropolitan centre of Lyon.

From 2041 until 2106, the rejuvenated Madame Guderian

transported clients from the Milieu to the Pliocene Exile, a

presumed natural paradise. After suffering belated qualms of

conscience about the fate of the time-travellers, Madame herself

passed into the Pliocene, and operation of her clandestine

service was taken over by the Human Polity in a quasi-official

manner: The time-gate was a convenient glory hole for

dissidents.

By 2110, when the gate into the Pliocene Exile had been

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operating for nearly seventy years, some 100,000 human time-

farers had passed through it into an unknown destiny.

On 25 August 2110, eight persons, making up that week's

"Group Green," were transported to Exile. These three women

and five men would play key roles in a drama that would affect

not only the Pliocene world, but ultimately that of the Milieu

itself.

Group Green discovered, as other time-travellers had before

them, that the natural paradise of Pliocene Europe was under

the control of a humanoid race from the Duat Galaxy, a star-

whirl many millions of light years away from our own part of

the universe. The exotics were also exiled, having been driven

from their home because of their barbarous battle-religion.

The dominant exotic faction, the Tanu, were tall and hand-

some. In spite of a thousand-year sojourn on Earth, there were

still less than 20,000 of them because their reproduction was

inhibited by solar radiation. Antagonistic to the Tanu and

outnumbering them by at least four to one were their ancient

foes, the Firvulag. Often called the Little People, these exotics

were mostly of short stature, although there were plenty of

human-sized and even gigantic individuals among them. They

reproduced quite well on Earth but were short-lived compared

to the Tanu.

Tanu and Firvulag constituted a dimorphic race—the former

metapsychically latent, and the latter possessed of operant

metafunctions, mostly limited in power. The Tanu, with their

higher technology, had long ago developed mind-amplifying

devices, called golden torcs, that raised them to operancy. Use

of the torcs had its price, however: A certain percentage of

Tanu children proved incompatible with it and died of the

"black-torc" syndrome, in spite of the efforts of the grieving

adults. These black-torc tragedies exacerbated the already

serious problem of low birthrate among the Tanu.

The Firvulag, tougher and cruder than their resplendent kin,

did not require torcs in order to exercise their metafunctions.

The leaders and great heroes among the Little People were the

mental equals of the Tanu; but most Firvulag were weaker.

Stubborn and conservative, for most of their stay on Earth they

had resisted the notion of acting in metaconcert—that is, using

a multimind operational mode. The Tanu had experimented

with this technique, although they never attained the efficiency

achieved by metapsychics in the Galactic Milieu.

For most of the thousand years that Tanu and Firvulag resided

on Pliocene Earth (which they called the Many-Coloured Land),

they were fairly evenly matched in the ritual wars fought as part

of their battle-religion. The greater finesse and technology of

the Tanu tended to counterbalance the superior numbers of the

ferociously obstinate Firvulag. The advent of time-travelling

humanity was to change the situation drastically.

Early on, the Tanu gained control of the fixed-focus time-gate

and took prisoner all the newly arrived humans, enslaving them.

The astounding discovery was made that human germ plasm

was compatible with that of the Tanu. The meaning behind this

paradox was immaterial to the Tanu; they were delighted to be

able to use their human slaves in breeding, since Tanu-human

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hybrids tended to have unusual physical and mental strength.

The time-travellers also proved to be a valuable technological

resource, enhancing the rather decadent science establishment

of the Tanu by injecting the expertise of the greatly advanced

Galactic Milieu. It had been strictly forbidden for time-travellers

to carry sophisticated weaponry back to the Pliocene (a restric-

tion that was often honoured in the breach), and the Tanu were

conservative in the type of military hardware that they permitted

their human serfs to build. Nevertheless, it was human ingenuity

that eventually gave the Tanu almost complete ascendency over

the Firvulag—who never mated with humans and generally

despised them.

Most of the enslaved time-travellers actually lived quite well

under the benevolent overlordship of the Tanu. Rough work

was done by small ramapithecine apes who were, ironically, part

of the direct hominid line that would climax in Homo sapiens

six million years in the future. The ramas wore tiny grey torcs

that compelled obedience; they had been used in largely abortive

breeding experiments by the Tanu prior to the arrival of time-

travelling humans.

Certain human slaves were also fitted with the collarlike torcs.

Those who occupied positions of trust or were engaged in vital

pursuits wore grey torcs similar to those fitted to the ramas.

These did not amplify the mind, but did allow telepathic commu-

nication with the Tanu, who were also able to administer punish-

ment or reward through the device. Luckier humans, who

showed evidence of metapsychic latencies when tested, were

given silver torcs. These were similar to the golden collars worn

by the Tanu, making latent metafaculties operant. The silver

torcs contained control circuits, however, and disobedience

brought swift and excruciating punishment. Silver-torc humans

were accepted as conditional citizens of the Tanu kingdom, and

under certain circumstances the silvers might be granted golden

torcs and full freedom. For humans as well as for Tanu the

torcs were potentially hazardous. Occasionally an incompatible

human torc wearer would be driven insane or killed outright by

the device. Pathological reactions were especially likely among

humans without significant metapsychic latencies.

The eight members of Group Green were to be mind-tested by

Tanu overlords immediately upon their arrival in the Pliocene,

as were all time-travellers. Five of them were "normal," that is,

possessing latencies far below the threshold of potential oper-

ancy. These were Claude Majewski, an elderly paleontologist;

Sister Amerie Roccaro, a physician and burnt-out priest; Stein

Oleson, a herculean planet-crust driller; Richard Voorhees, a

disgraced starship captain; and Bryan Grenfell, an anthropolo-

gist who had followed his lover, Mercy Lamballe, into the

Pliocene.

The other three members of Group Green were anything but

"normal." Aiken Drum, a charming young criminal, showed

very strong latencies and was fitted with a silver torc. Felice

Landry, a disturbed young athlete, knew that she also possessed

extremely powerful latent metafaculties; but for reasons of her

own, she refused to cooperate with the Tanu overlords and was

able to postpone being tested.

The eighth and most unusual member of Group Green was

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Elizabeth Orme. In the Milieu, she had been a fully operant

Grand Master metapsychics, an honoured teacher. Through a

brain trauma she had apparently lost her awesome powers of

farsensing and redaction and reverted to the "normal" state. In

despair at having been shut out of the metapsychic Unity she

had rejoiced in, Elizabeth elected to pass into the Pliocene.

There she would be among others like herself, since no operants

were allowed to undertake time-travel.

To her horror, Elizabeth discovered that the shock of

temporal translation had begun the restoration of her lost

powers. Convalescent, at first terrified and then consumed with

rage at the irony of her situation, Elizabeth heard the Tanu

overlord Creyn tell her that a "wonderful life" awaited her in

the Many-Coloured Land. As the only torcless operant, she

would be considered a unique treasure: The Tanu King himself

would be her consort . . .

That evening, two caravans set out from the Tanu Castle

Gateway. Group Green had been split in half. Bound north for

the city of Finiah on the Proto-Rhine was a sizeable mob of

normal humans destined to become ordinary slaves and brood

stock. These included Claude, Sister Amerie, Richard, and

Felice—who had confided to her friends that she planned not

only to escape, but also to "take" the entire Tanu race!

The southbound caravan was much smaller. En route to the

Tanu capital of Muriah in the Mediterranean Basin were the

Tanu overlord Creyn, Elizabeth, Aiken Drum, two other silver-

torced humans named Sukey Davies and Raimo Hakkinen, the

gigantic driller Stein, who had been fitted with a grey torc in

preparation for life as a gladiator, and the untorced anthropolo-

gist Bryan Grenfell, whose expertise was strangely valued by

the Tanu and who looked forward to finding his lost lover

somewhere in Muriah.

The caravan bound for Finiah was soon involved in a prisoner

revolt, engineered by the erstwhile professional athlete, Felice.

Abnormally strong, with powerful coercive latencies that let her

mind-control animals, Felice had smuggled a small steel dagger

past the searchers at Castle Gateway. Working with Richard,

the starship captain, and two men named Yoshimitsu and Tatsuji

who were costumed as samurai, Felice engineered the killing of

the female overlord Epone as well as the entire prisoner escort

of grey-torc human troops.

One group of freed prisoners elected to follow Basil

Wimborne, a mountain climber and former Oxford don, who

felt the best plan of escape lay beyond Lac de Bresse in the Jura

highlands. Claude, the old paleontologist, convinced his three

Group Green friends that they would be safer fleeing into the

heavily forested Vosges Mountains rather than risking a long

lake voyage to the Jura. A lone course was taken by the survi-

ving Japanese, Yoshimitsu, who headed north hoping to reach

the sea.

Claude, Richard, Amerie, and Felice fled deep into the

Vosges. Eventually they were contacted by a ragtag group of

free outlaw humans, fugitives from Tanu settlements, who called

themselves Lowlives. The Lowlife leader was none other than

Madame Angelique Guderian, former keeper of the time-gate

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and the ultimate author of Pliocene humanity's degradation.

She wore a golden torc, the gift of the Firvulag, who had formed

a shaky alliance with the Lowlives against their mortal foe, the

Tanu.

A great manhunt had been mounted by the Tanu after the

prisoner revolt. Basil Wimborne and most of his contingent were

recaptured and sent to Finiah. Its city-lord, Velteyn, led a Flying

Hunt himself over the Vosges in search of the other escapees;

but they were safe with Madame and her Lowlives, listening

incredulously to the old woman's scheme for freeing humanity

from the Tanu yoke, which would utilize the rather reluctant

cooperation of the exotic Firvulag.

Hundreds of kilometres east of the Rhine River lay the so-

called Ship's Grave. There the titanic space-going organism who

had carried both Tanu and Firvulag from the Duat Galaxy to

our own had plunged to Earth, creating a huge crater. Tanu

and Firvulag passengers in the Ship, led by its spouse, a woman

named Brede, had escaped from the dying organism in small

flying machines before it impacted. Later the two groups of

exotics had left the flyers parked around the rim of the crater

after their two greatest heroes, Shining Lugonn of the Tanu and

Sharn the Atrocious of the Firvulag, fought a ritual battle in

honour of the defunct Ship. Ceremoniously entombed within

one of the flyers—which were presumed to be still at the crater

after a thousand years—was the body of Lugonn, together with

his laserlike weapon, the Spear.

Madame proposed to lead an expedition of Lowlives to the

Ship's Grave crater and retrieve this Spear for use against the

very Tanu who held it sacred. And if the flyers were still opera-

tional, as seemed likely, the expedition would attempt to bring

one back to participate in a joint Lowlife-Firvulag attack on

Finiah, a Tanu stronghold.

After many vicissitudes, this first phase of Madame Guder-

ian's great plan for the liberation of Pliocene humanity was

successful. The Tanu were forced to abandon Finiah, thus losing

their only barium mine, which had produced an element vital

in the making of all torcs. Felice, who showed increasing

symptoms of a severe psychosis, obtained a golden torc for

herself from the ruins of Finiah. The mental amplifier unlocked

the stupendous powers of coercion, psychokinesis, and creativity

that had been latent in her brain, and fuelled the girl's fierce

desire for revenge upon the Tanu.

The next phase of Madame's plan involved an infiltration of

the torc factory in the Tanu capital, Muriah, and a parallel

operation that had as its objective the permanent closing of the

time-gate.

Madame and ten other conspirators, including Felice, Claude,

Sister Amerie, and Basil Wimborne—who had been rescued

during the fall of Finiah—now set out on a long trip south. They

took with them the laserlike Spear of Lugonn. Its energies had

been totally discharged during the Finiah operation, but they

hoped that their clever Group Green companion, Aiken Drum,

would be able to recharge it when they appealed to him for

assistance down in the Tanu capital.

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Aiken—together with Elizabeth, Bryan, Stein, and the other

privileged captives—had encountered an utterly different face

of the Many-Coloured Land upon their arrival in Muriah some

weeks past. They were presented to the Tanu aristocracy at a

lavish feast, where they were treated at first like honoured guests

instead of slaves.

Elizabeth was told by Thagdal, the King, that she would first

be initiated into Tanu ways by Brede Shipspouse, the enigmatic

guardian of both exotic races. When this was accomplished, she

and the King would found a new dynasty of torcless, fully

operant Tanu-human hybrids. (Queen Nontusvel seemed

entirely agreeable to this plan, in spite of the fact that her own

large brood of powerful adult children would undoubtedly be

overshadowed by Elizabeth's offspring.)

Bryan the anthropologist was ordered to make a study of the

impact of humanity upon the Tanu socioeconomy. King Thagdal

believed that human genes and human innovation had been a

boon to the Tanu, and he expected Bryan's survey to vindicate

his policy encouraging interbreeding and the adoption of certain

human inventions. A minority Tanu faction, headed by Nodonn

Battlemaster, the most powerful son of Nontusvel and heir

presumptive, maintained that the exotic culture was being

poisoned by human influences.

As the "welcoming" banquet progressed, it became clear that

a grim fate was in store for Stein Oleson, the brawny ex-driller

who had been befriended by the trickster youth, Aiken Drum.

Stein was put up for auction as a kind of gladiator; to save him

from certain death, Aiken himself impudently put in his own

bid for Stein. The Tanu throng was stunned when the head of

the Farsensor Guild, Mayvar Kingmaker, not only endorsed

Aiken's bid but also took him for her protege. Mayvar was well

aware that the young man, who wore a golden suit all covered

with pockets, possessed enormous latent mindpowers that were

only beginning to come fully operant as a result of the triggering

action of his silver torc.

Deeply shaken by a glimpse into Aiken's mind and by

Mayvar's embrace of the youth (she was not called "kingmaker"

for nothing), Thagdal accepted Aiken's bid for Stein. After a

period of training, Aiken would be obliged to rid the kingdom

of a certain Firvulag monster, Delbaeth.

In the weeks that followed, Aiken was tutored by Mayvar in

the exercise of his fast-developing metafunctions. He became

fully operant without a torc—although this fact was concealed

from the other Tanu by Mayvar. He successfully disposed of

Delbaeth and, with Stein as his henchman, became cautiously

allied with the human President of the Coercer Guild, Sebi-

Gomnol, who had plans of his own for advancing human domin-

ation of the Tanu kingdom.

The anthropologist Bryan Grenfell carried out his cultural

survey—but scarcely paid attention to the import of the growing

body of data, because he was once more under the spell of his

long-lost love, Mercy Lamballe. This woman had arrived in the

Pliocene shortly before Group Green. A latent metapsychic with

extraordinary creative powers, Mercy had become the latest

consort of the formidable Nodonn Battlemaster and was

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completely converted to the Tanu cause. Nodonn and his siblings

of the Host of Nontusvel encouraged Mercy to entice Bryan, so

that the anthropologist's survey could be used against the King

and Gomnol.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth was under the protection of the

mysterious Brede Shipspouse, after having been subjected to

inept attacks by Nodonn and the Host, who saw her as a dynastic

threat. Safe inside Brede's room without doors, a sophisticated

force-field secure against physical and mental penetration, Eliz-

abeth confided her despair and hopelessness to the exotic

woman. The Shipspouse, maternally concerned with both the

Tanu and Firvulag races, perceived Elizabeth as one who might

lead them (as Brede apparently could not) out of their barbarous

battle-culture into a truly civilized society of the mind. Elizabeth

declined this role of spiritual motherhood. She did, however,

use her Milieu training to lift Brede into metapsychic operancy,

and the two briefly enjoyed a limited Unity. This was broken

when Brede insisted that she foresaw Elizabeth assuming the

guardian role, and the human woman violently rejected the

responsibility.

Around the beginning of October, the entire Many-Coloured

Land prepared for the annual ritual war, the Grand Combat,

by means of a month-long Truce. Up north, Madame Guderian

and her band of saboteurs made use of the peace to implement

their plans. Madame and Claude, the old paleontologist, went

into hiding close by the time-gate. They planned to wait until

the others—including Felice, Sister Amerie, Basil, and a Native

American leader named Peopeo Moxmox Burke—reached

Muriah and readied a strike against the torc factory inside

Coercer Guild headquarters. The attacks against time-gate and

factory would be made simultaneously.

Felice and the other southbound saboteurs at first hoped to

use the Spear to destroy the factory. They summoned Aiken

Drum to their hiding place and gave him the weapon, which he

promised to recharge and return to them. Actually, Aiken had

no intention of aiding his former compatriots. Encouraged by

both Mayvar and Gomnol, he aspired to become King of the

Many-Coloured Land by defeating Nodonn in the upcoming

Grand Combat. He warned his confederate Gomnol to protect

the torc factory against the saboteurs; then he flew north, disgu-

ised as a bird, in order to thwart Claude and Madame's attempt

to close the time-gate. In this he failed. Sacrificing themselves,

the elderly couple carried a warning back in time to the Milieu

authorities, and the time-gate operation was suspended.

The saboteurs infiltrating the torc factory were surprised by

a force of Tanu knights, members of the Host of Nontusvel,

who had been sent by Nodonn. Of the surviving humans, Felice

was turned over to Culluket the Interrogator for torture, while

Sister Amerie, Chief Burke, and Basil were thrown into a

dungeon to await death during the Grand Combat. The human

Lord Coercer, Gomnol, was mind-blasted to death by the Host

in a subterfuge, and the blame was put on Felice.

As the time of the Grand Combat approached, a number of

crises reached a critical stage. Aiken, deprived of his powerful

ally, Gomnol, found himself endangered by Stein. The big crust

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driller had been imprisoned with Sukey, now his wife, and his

sanity was beginning to totter because of the unhealthy effect

of the grey torc he wore. There was a chance that Stein might

inadvertently reveal that Aiken conspired against the Tanu.

Resisting the temptation to kill his friend, Aiken asked

Mayvar to get Stein and Sukey out of Muriah, beyond range of

the Host's mental snooping. Mayvar agreed, then went to a

meeting of the clandestine Tanu Peace Faction. This group

hoped that Aiken would succeed in his bid for the kingship and

bring a new era of peace and civilization to the Many-Coloured

Land. Among the peacelovers was Minanonn the Heretic, once

Tanu Battlemaster, who had been forced into exile deep in the

Pyrenees.

Brede Shipspouse let Elizabeth leave the room without doors

when she saw that the human metapsychic was determined to

live a life free of responsibility. Elizabeth agreed to take Stein

and Sukey away with her in her three-place hot-air balloon. She

awaited arrival of the pair on a mountaintop above Muriah.

Creyn the redactor fetched them from prison—but he could not

help bringing Felice, too, whom he had found unconscious and

near death in an adjoining cell, in hope that Elizabeth would

give up her place in the balloon to the tortured young athlete.

Elizabeth was trapped by her own altruism, even though

convinced that the Shipspouse had planned this to forestall her

escape. Finally, Elizabeth sent Felice, Stein, and Sukey away in

the balloon, and she returned to the room without doors, where

she withdrew into a fiery mental cocoon that isolated her from

Brede and all other minds.

The time of the Grand Combat had come. Virtually the entire

population of Tanu and Firvulag—together with large numbers

of human slaves, assembled on the White Silver Plain below

Muriah for the ceremonies and the ritual war. Aiken was

appointed by Mayvar to be a leader in the Combat; he had

attracted many adherents among the Tanu and hybrid warriors.

In a preliminary contest, Mercy overcame Aluteyn Craftmaster

to become the new President of the Creator Guild.

Hundreds of kilometres west of the White Silver Plain, the

three escaping balloonists were enacting a drama that would

ultimately affect the fate of the unsuspecting combatants.

In his torture of Felice, Culluket the Interrogator had unwit-

tingly duplicated a drastic mind-altering technique that Elizabeth

had used on Brede to raise her to operancy; now Felice had

gone operant, too, and no longer needed a torc to exercise

her metapsychic powers. These powers—at least the destructive

aspects of psychokinesis and creativity—were greater than those

of any other person in the world. The girl's incipient psychosis

had similarly burgeoned under the torture; her thirst for revenge

against the Tanu was now inextricably merged with a darker

sadomasochistic element of her sick mind. Compelling Stein,

the former planet-crust driller, to help her, Felice began to blast

the narrow Gibraltar isthmus with bolts of psychoenergy. She

intended to admit the Atlantic waters into the nearby empty

basin of the Pliocene Mediterranean and drown the Grand

Combat participants.

As the madwoman smote the earth with her mindbolts, the

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rocky barrier neared the breaking point. But Felice weakened

before the job was complete. In her extremity of hatred she

prayed for help from whatever powers of darkness might

exist—and the assistance came from somewhere. A final titanic

burst of psychoenergy opened the Gibraltar Gate and a cascade

of seawater thundered into the dry Mediterranean, heading

toward the White Silver Plain below the Tanu capital of Muriah.

Felice was flung from the balloon by the final concussion.

Quite insane, she assumed the shape of a monstrous raven.

Stein and Sukey soared away on the stormwinds and ultimately

landed in a remote part of France.

The prescient Brede Shipspouse knew about the catastrophe.

She appeared to Amerie, Basil, and Chief Burke in their prison

cell, healed them, and took them to a room within the Redactor

Guild complex, high on the Mount of Heroes above Muriah.

There Elizabeth lay in her self-induced coma. Brede instructed

the trio to guard Elizabeth, "the most important person in the

world," and to wait until the following morning, when they

would know what had to be done.

Meanwhile, the Grand Combat was reaching its climax. For the

first time in forty years, the Firvulag were holding their own. The

stubbornly conservative Little People had previously refused to

emulate human tactics, as the Tanu had done; but the Firvulag-

Lowlife victory at Finiah had opened the eyes of their generals,

Sharn and Ayfa, and inspired them to innovation. In the melee

phase of Combat scoring, the Firvulag were only slightly behind

the Tanu. The finale of the ritual war, in which individual cham-

pions met hand to hand, would decide the victor.

The rivalry between Aiken and Nodonn divided the loyalty of

the Tanu forces. At a war feast prior to the Heroic Encounters,

Nodonn tried to discredit Aiken by producing Bryan Grenfell

and the latter's adverse study of humanity's impact upon the

Many-Coloured Land. This aggravated the split between tradi-

tionalist Tanu and those loyal to Aiken. The Encounters were

won by Firvulag heroes in an upset. Only a victory by Aiken

over the ogrish Firvulag general, Pallol One-Eye, could save the

day for the Tanu. Aiken told Nodonn and the traditionalists

that he could lick the monster if he were allowed to fight in a

human way. This was finally permitted. Aiken conquered Pallol

and the Tanu were declared overall winners of the Grand

Combat.

Heartbroken and bitter over their narrow loss, most of the

Firvulag left the White Silver Plain. Only their royalty remained

for the award ceremony and its intriguing anticlimax, a duel

between Aiken and Nodonn for the battlemastership (and ultim-

ately the kingship) of the Tanu. Virtually the entire flower and

chivalry of the Tanu were gathered as witnesses. Brede herself

was there to see Mayvar Kingmaker bestow upon Aiken his

Tanu name: He was called Lugonn, after the Shining Hero who

had fallen at the Ship's Grave a thousand years before, and he

was invested with the sacred Spear, now recharged and ready

for use again. Nodonn took up a similar weapon, the Sword,

which had once belonged to a Firvulag hero.

The two rivals squared off and began their duel just as the

cataclysmic flood from the encroaching Atlantic swept over the

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May, Julian - The Adversary

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