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11 - The Door Through Space - Marion Zimmer Bradley · Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven. Lights flared in my eyes. I was standing
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  Speaker 1: solidly on my feet in the street shrine, but the
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  Speaker 1: street was gone. Coils of incense still smudged the air.
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  Speaker 1: The god squatted toadlike in his recess. The girl was
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  Speaker 1: hanging limp, locked in my clenched arms. As the floor
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  Speaker 1: straightened under my feet. I staggered, thrown off balance by
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  Speaker 1: the sudden return of the girl's weight, and grabbed blindly
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  Speaker 1: for support. Give her to me, said a voice, and
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  Speaker 1: the girl's sagging body was lifted from my arms. A
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  Speaker 1: strong hand grasped my elbow. I found a chair beneath
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  Speaker 1: my knees and sank gratefully into it. The transmission isn't
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  Speaker 1: smooth yet between such distant terminals, the voice remarked, I
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  Speaker 1: see Merlyn has fainted again. A weakling the girl, but useful.
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  Speaker 1: I spat blood, trying to get the room in focus.
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  Speaker 1: For I was inside a room, a room of some
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  Speaker 1: translucent substance, windowless, a skylight high above me, through which
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  Speaker 1: pink daylight streamed daylight. And it had been midnight in Charin.
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  Speaker 1: I had come half way round the planet in a
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  Speaker 1: few seconds. From somewhere I heard the sound of hammering,
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  Speaker 1: tiny bell like hammering, the chiming of a fairy anvil.
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  Speaker 1: I looked up and saw a man, a man watching
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  Speaker 1: me on wolf. You see all kinds of human, half human,
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  Speaker 1: and non human life, and I considered myself something of
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  Speaker 1: an expert on all three. But I had never seen
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  Speaker 1: anyone or anything who so closely resembled the human, and
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  Speaker 1: so obviously wasn't he or it? Was tall and lean,
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  Speaker 1: man shaped, but oddly muscled, a vague suggestion of something
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  Speaker 1: less than human in the lean hunch of his posture. Manlike.
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  Speaker 1: He wore green, tight fitting trunks and a shirt of
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  Speaker 1: green fur that revealed bulging biceps where they shouldn't be,
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  Speaker 1: and angular planes where there should have been swelling muscles.
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  Speaker 1: The shoulders were high, the neck unpleasantly sinuous, and the
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  Speaker 1: face a little narrower than human. Was handsomely arrogant, with
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  Speaker 1: a kind of warry, alert mischief that was the least
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  Speaker 1: human thing about him. He bent, tilted the girl's inert
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  Speaker 1: body on a divan of some sort, and turned his
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  Speaker 1: back on her, lifting his hand in an impatient and
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  Speaker 1: unpleasantly reminiscent the tinkling of the little hammers stopped, as
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  Speaker 1: if a switch had been disconnected. Now, said the non human,
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  Speaker 1: we can talk like the waif. He spoke shin saw,
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  Speaker 1: and spoke it with a better accent than any non
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  Speaker 1: human I'd ever known, So well that I looked again
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  Speaker 1: to be certain. I wasn't two days to answer the
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  Speaker 1: same tongue. But I couldn't keep back a spate of questions.
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  Speaker 1: What happened? Who are you? What is this place? The
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  Speaker 1: non human waited, crossing his hands, quite passable hands if
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  Speaker 1: he didn't look too closely at what should have been nails,
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  Speaker 1: and bent forward in a sketchy gesture. Do not blame Miellyn.
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  Speaker 1: She acted under orders. It was imperative you'd be brought
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  Speaker 1: here to night, and we had reason to believe you
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  Speaker 1: might ignore an ordinary summons. You were clever at evading
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  Speaker 1: our surveillance for a time, but there would not be
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  Speaker 1: too dry towners in Charin tonight. Who would dare the
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  Speaker 1: ghost wind your reputation? Does you justice? Recall Censar, Recall
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  Speaker 1: Censar once again, recall shaken. I pulled a rag from
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  Speaker 1: my pocket and went blood from my mouth. I'd figured out,
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  Speaker 1: and shine saw why the mistake was logical, and here
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  Speaker 1: in Charin. I'd been hanging around in recalls old haunts,
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  Speaker 1: covering his old trails. Once again. Mistaken identity was natural,
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  Speaker 1: natural or not, I wasn't going to deny it. If
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  Speaker 1: these were Recall's enemies, my real identity should be kept
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  Speaker 1: as an ace in reserve, which might just might get
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  Speaker 1: me out alive again. If they were his friends, well,
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  Speaker 1: I could only hope that no one who knew him
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  Speaker 1: well by sight would walk in on me. We knew
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  Speaker 1: the non human continued that if you remained where you were,
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  Speaker 1: the Tehran and Cargyl would have made his arrest. We
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  Speaker 1: know about your quarrel with Cargol, among other things, but
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  Speaker 1: we did not consider it necessary that you should fall
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  Speaker 1: into his hands. At present, I was puzzled. I still
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  Speaker 1: don't understand exactly where am I. This is the master
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  Speaker 1: shrine of Nebron Nebron. The stray pieces of the puzzle
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  Speaker 1: suddenly jolted into place. Kiral had warned me, not knowing
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  Speaker 1: he was doing it, I hastily imitated the gesture Kiral
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  Speaker 1: had made, gabbling a few words of an archaic charm,
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  Speaker 1: like every earth man who's lived on Wolf more than
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  Speaker 1: a tourist season I'd seen faces go blank and impassive
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  Speaker 1: at the mention of the toad god. Rumor made his
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  Speaker 1: spies omnipresent, his priests omniscient, his anger all powerful. I
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  Speaker 1: had believed about a tenth of what I had heard
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  Speaker 1: or alas. The Terran Empire has little to say to
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  Speaker 1: planetary religions, and Nebrin's cult is a remarkably obscure one,
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  Speaker 1: despite the street shrines on every corner. Now I was
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  Speaker 1: in his master's shrine, and the device which had brought
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  Speaker 1: me here was, beyond doubt, a working model of a
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  Speaker 1: matter transmitter. A matter transmitter, a working model. The words
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  Speaker 1: triggered memory recall was after it? And who? I asked, slowly?
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  Speaker 1: Are you lord? The green clad creature hunched thin shoulders
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  Speaker 1: again in a ceremonious gesture. I am called Evarin, humble
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  Speaker 1: servant of Nebron and yourself, he added, but there was
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  Speaker 1: no humility in his manner. I am called the toy
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  Speaker 1: maker Avarin. That was another name given weight by Rumor.
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  Speaker 1: A breath of gossip in a thieves market, A scrawled
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  Speaker 1: word on smudged paper, a blank folder in Tarren intelligence.
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  Speaker 1: Another puzzle piece snapped into place, toy maker. The girl
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  Speaker 1: on the divan sat up, suddenly, passing slim hands over
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  Speaker 1: her disheveled hair. Did I thank Avrin? I had to
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  Speaker 1: fight to get him into the stone, and the patterns
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  Speaker 1: were not set straight in that terminal. You must send
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  Speaker 1: one of the little ones to set them to rights,
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  Speaker 1: toy maker, Are you listening to me? Stop chattering? Miellyn
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  Speaker 1: said everin indifferently. You brought him here, and that is
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  Speaker 1: all that matters. You aren't hurt. Miellyn pouted and looked
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  Speaker 1: ruefully at her bare, bruised feet, patted the wrinkles of
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  Speaker 1: her ragged frock with fastidious fingers. My poor feet, she mourned,
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  Speaker 1: They are black and blue with the cobbles, and my
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  Speaker 1: hair is filled with sand and tangles. Toy maker, what
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  Speaker 1: way was this to send me to entice a man?
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  Speaker 1: Any man would have come quickly, quickly if he had
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  Speaker 1: seen me looking lovely, But you you send me in rags?
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  Speaker 1: She stamped a small barefoot. She was not nearly as
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  Speaker 1: young as she looked in the street. Though immature and
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  Speaker 1: underdeveloped by Terrance standards, she had a fair figure for
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  Speaker 1: a dry town woman. Her rags fell now in graceful folds.
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  Speaker 1: Her hair was spun black glass, and I I saw
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  Speaker 1: at the rags and the confusion in the filthy street
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  Speaker 1: had kept me from seeing before. It was the girl
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  Speaker 1: of the Spaceport Cafe, the girl who had appeared and
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  Speaker 1: vanished in the eerie streets of Canarsa. Evarin was regarding
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  Speaker 1: her with what in a human might have been rueful impatience.
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  Speaker 1: He said, you know you enjoyed yourself as always, Miellyn,
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  Speaker 1: Run along and make yourself beautiful again, little nuisance. The
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  Speaker 1: girl danced out of the room, and I was just
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  Speaker 1: as glad to see her go. The toy maker motioned
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  Speaker 1: to me this way, he directed, and led me through
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  Speaker 1: a different door. The off stage hammering I had heard,
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  Speaker 1: tiny bell tones like a fairy xylophone began again as
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  Speaker 1: the door opened, and we passed into a work room,
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  Speaker 1: which made me remember nursery tails from a half forgote
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  Speaker 1: in childhood. On Terra. For the workers were tiny gnarled trolls.
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  Speaker 1: They were choks chalks from the polar mountains, dwarfed and
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  Speaker 1: furred and half human, with witch like faces and great
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  Speaker 1: golden eyes. And I had the curious feeling that if
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  Speaker 1: I looked hard enough, I would see the little toy
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  Speaker 1: cellar they had hunted out of the KARSA. I didn't look.
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  Speaker 1: I figured I was in enough trouble already. Tiny hammers
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  Speaker 1: pattered on miniature anvils in a tinkling, jingling chorus of
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  Speaker 1: musical clinks and taps. Golden eyes focused like lenses over
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  Speaker 1: winking jewels and gimcracks, busy elves makers of toys. Evren
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  Speaker 1: jerked his shoulders with an imperative gesture. I followed him
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  Speaker 1: through a fairy workroom, but could not refrain from casting
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  Speaker 1: a lingering look at the work tables. A withered leprechaun
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  Speaker 1: set eyes into the head of a mannequin hound. Furred
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  Speaker 1: fingers worked precious metals into invisible filigree for the collarpiece
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  Speaker 1: of a dancing doll. Metallic feathers were thrust with clockwork
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  Speaker 1: precision into the wings of a skeleton bird no longer
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  Speaker 1: than my fingernail. The nose of the hound wabbled and sniffed.
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  Speaker 1: The bird's wings quivered. The eyes of the little dancer
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  Speaker 1: followed my footsteps. Toys this way, Evn rapped and a
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  Speaker 1: door slid shut behind us. The clinks and taps grew
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  Speaker 1: faint fainter, but never ceased. My face must have betrayed
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  Speaker 1: more than conventional impassivity for ever and smiled. Now you know.
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  Speaker 1: Recall why I am called the toy maker? Is it
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  Speaker 1: not strange? The master Priest of Nebron, a maker of toys,
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  Speaker 1: and the shrine of the toad God a workshop for
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  Speaker 1: children's playthings. Everen paused suggestively. They were obviously not children's playthings,
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  Speaker 1: and this was my cue to say so, But I
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  Speaker 1: avoided the trap. Everen opened a sliding panel and took
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  Speaker 1: out a doll. She was perhaps the length of my
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  Speaker 1: longest finger, molded to the precise proportions of a woman,
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  Speaker 1: and costumed after the bizarre fashion of the art Kron
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  Speaker 1: dancing girls. Evaren touched no button or key that I
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  Speaker 1: could see, But when he set the figure on its feet,
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  Speaker 1: it executed a whirling, arm tossing dance in a fast,
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  Speaker 1: tricky temper. I am, in a sense benevolent, Evarin murmured.
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  Speaker 1: He snapped his fingers, and the doll sank to her
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  Speaker 1: knees and poised there silent. Moreover, I have the means,
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  Speaker 1: and let us say, the ability, to indulge my small fantasies.
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  Speaker 1: The little daughter of the President of the Federation of
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  Speaker 1: Trade Cities on Samora was sent such a doll recently.
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  Speaker 1: What a pity that Paolo Eromango was so suddenly impeached
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  Speaker 1: and banished. The twiymaker clucked his teeth commiseratingly. Perhaps this
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  Speaker 1: small companion will compensate the little Carmela for her adjustment
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  Speaker 1: to her new position. He replaced the dancer and pulled
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  Speaker 1: down something like a whirligig. This might interest you, he mused,
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  Speaker 1: and said it spinning. I stared at the pattern of
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  Speaker 1: lights that flowed and disappeared, melting in and out of
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  Speaker 1: visible shadows. Suddenly I realized what the thing was doing.
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  Speaker 1: I rested my eyes away with an effort. Had there
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  Speaker 1: been a lapse of seconds or minutes? Had ever un spoken?
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  Speaker 1: Evarin arrested the compelling motion with one finger. Several of
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  Speaker 1: these pretty playthings are available to the children of important men,
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  Speaker 1: he said, absently, an import of value for our exploited
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  Speaker 1: and impoverished world. Unfortunately, they are perhaps a little uh obvious.
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  Speaker 1: The incident of nervous breakdowns is interfering with their sale.
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  Speaker 1: The children, of course, are unaffected and loved them. Everen
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  Speaker 1: set the hypnotic wheel moving again, glanced sideways at me,
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  Speaker 1: and set it carefully back. Now, Everin's voice hard, with
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  Speaker 1: the silkiness of a cat's snarl, clawed the silence. We'll
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  Speaker 1: talk business. I turned, composing my face. Evern had something
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  Speaker 1: concealed in one hand, but I didn't think it was
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  Speaker 1: a weapon, and if I'd known, I'd have had to
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  Speaker 1: ignore it. Anyway, Perhaps you wonder how we recognized and
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  Speaker 1: found you. A panel cleared in the wall and became translucent,
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  Speaker 1: Confused flickers moved dropped into focus, and I realized that
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  Speaker 1: the panel was an ordinary television screen, and I was
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  Speaker 1: looking into the well known interior of the Cafe of
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  Speaker 1: Three Rainbows in the trade city of Charin. By this time,
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  Speaker 1: I was running low on curiosity and didn't wonder till
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  Speaker 1: much much later how televised pictures were transmitted around the
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  Speaker 1: curve of a planet. Everin sharpened the focus down on
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  Speaker 1: the long, earth tight bar where a tall man in
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  Speaker 1: terreen clothes was talking to a pale haired girl. Everin said,
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  Speaker 1: by now, Rays Cargill has decided no doubt that you
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  Speaker 1: fell into his trap and into the hands of the Yaman.
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  Speaker 1: He is off guard now, And suddenly the whole thing
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  Speaker 1: seemed so unbearably illogically funny that my shoulders shook with
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  Speaker 1: the effort to keep back dangerous laughter. Since I'd landed
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  Speaker 1: in Charin, I'd taken great pains to avoid the trade
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  Speaker 1: city or anyone who might have associated me with it,
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  Speaker 1: and recall, somehow aware of this, had conveniently filled in
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  Speaker 1: the gap by posing as me. It wasn't nearly as
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  Speaker 1: difficult as it sounded. I had found that out in
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  Speaker 1: Shane Saw. Charin is a long lng long way from
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  Speaker 1: the major trade city near the Harsa. I hadn't a
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  Speaker 1: single intimate friend there or within hundreds of miles to
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  Speaker 1: see through the imposture. At most, there were half a
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  Speaker 1: dozen of the staff that I'd once met or had
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  Speaker 1: a drink with eight or ten years ago. Racal could
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  Speaker 1: speak perfect standard when he chose if he lapsed into
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  Speaker 1: drytown idiom, that too, was in my known character. I
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  Speaker 1: had no doubt he was making a great success of
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  Speaker 1: it all, probably doing much better with my identity than
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  Speaker 1: I could ever have done with his. Evarin, rasped Cargill
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  Speaker 1: meant to leave the planet. What stopped him. You could
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  Speaker 1: be of use to us, recall, but not with this
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  Speaker 1: blood feud unsettled that needed no elucidation. No wolf in
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  Speaker 1: in his right mind will bargain with a dry towner
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  Speaker 1: carrying an unresolved blood feud. By law and custom, declared
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  Speaker 1: blood feud takes precedent over any other business, public or private,
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  Speaker 1: and is sufficient excuse for broken promises, neglected duties, theft,
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  Speaker 1: even murder. We want it settled once and for all.
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  Speaker 1: Everand's voice was low and unhurried, and we aren't above
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  Speaker 1: wading the scales. This Cargol can and has posed as
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  Speaker 1: a dry towner undetected. We don't like earth men who
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  Speaker 1: can do that. In settling your feud, you will be
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  Speaker 1: aiding us and removing a danger. We would be grateful.
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  Speaker 1: He opened his closed hand, displaying something small, curled inert.
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  Speaker 1: Every living thing emits a characteristic pattern of electrical nerve impulses.
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  Speaker 1: We have ways of recording those impulses, and we have
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  Speaker 1: had you and Cargol under observation for a long time.
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  Speaker 1: We've had plenty of opportunity to key this toy to
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  Speaker 1: Cargo's pattern on his palm. The curled thing stirred spread wings.
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  Speaker 1: A fledgling bird lay there, small soft body, throbbing slightly,
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  Speaker 1: half hidden in a ruff of metallic feathers. I glimpsed
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  Speaker 1: a grimly elongated beak. The pinions were feathered with delicate down,
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  Speaker 1: less than a quarter of an inch long. They beat
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  Speaker 1: with delicate insistence against the toymaker's prisoning fingers. This is
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  Speaker 1: not dangerous to you. Press here, he showed me. And
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  Speaker 1: if race cargole is within a certain distance, and it
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  Speaker 1: is up to you to be within that distance, it
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  Speaker 1: will find him and kill him unerringly, inescapably, untraceably. We
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  Speaker 1: will not tell you the critical distance, and we will
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  Speaker 1: give you three days. He checked my startled exclamation with
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  Speaker 1: a gesture. Of course, this is a test. Within the hour,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: cargo will receive a warning. We want no incompetence who
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: must be helped too much, Nor do we want cowards
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: if you fail or release the bird at a distance
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  Speaker 1: too great or evade the test. The green inhuman malice
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  Speaker 1: in his eyes made me sweat. We have made another bird.
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  Speaker 1: By now my brain was swimming, But I thought I
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: understood the complex inhuman logic involved. The other bird is
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  Speaker 1: keyed to me with slow contempt. Evarin shook his head.
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  Speaker 1: You you are used to danger and fond of a gambol
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  Speaker 1: nothing so simple. We have given you three days. If
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: within that time the bird you carried has not killed,
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  Speaker 1: the other bird will fly and it will kill Rakhal.
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  Speaker 1: You have a wife, yes, Racall had a wife. They
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: could threaten Ricall's wife, and his wife was my sister Julie.
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  Speaker 1: Everything after that was anti climax. Of course, I had
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: to drink with Avrin, the elaborate formal ritual without which
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: no bargain on wolf is concluded. He entertained me with
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: gory and technical descriptions of the ways in which the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: birds and other of his hellish toys did their killing
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and worse tasks. Miellynd danced into the room and upset
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the exquisite solemnity of the wine ritual by perching on
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  Speaker 1: my knee, stealing a sip from my cup, and pouting
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: prettily when I paid her less attention than she thought
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: she merited. I didn't dare pay much attention, even when
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: she whispered with the deliberate and thorough wantonness of a
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  Speaker 1: dry town woman of high cast who has flung aside
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  Speaker 1: her fetters, something about a rendezvous at the Three Rainbows.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: But eventually it was over, and I stepped through a
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: door that twisted with a giddy blankness, and found myself
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: outside a bare, windowless wall and chair in again. The
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: night sky starred and cold. The acrid smell of the
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: ghost wind was thinning in the streets, but I had
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to crouch in a cranny of the wall. When a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: final rustling horde of Yamen, the last of their receding tide,
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  Speaker 1: rustled down the street. I found my way to my
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: lodging in a filthy chalk hostel, and threw myself down
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  Speaker 1: on the verminous bed. Believe it or not, I slept.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eleven.