INTRODUCTION 2 page

Beverel shrugged. “It saves Daddy money on pensions.”

“Yes, but you even liquefied his keys! Daddy’s not going to be happy if we can’t lock and unlock the dungeon doors.”

“Shut up, Vug,” Beverel said casually. “It’s not as if we’re going to need to lock or unlock anything once I see to it that our prisoners are… taken care of. Mwahaha!”

“ Taken care of? But Daddy said‑”

“What Daddy doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Beverel replied suavely. “And what Daddy doesn’t find out from a certain tattletale little sister I could mention, won’t hurt you. ”

Vug’s eyes brimmed with tears. “You always ruin everything. ”

“Stop your namby‑pamby whining, you puny excuse for an evil overlord’s daughter!” Beverel snapped, slapping Vug smartly across the face for emphasis. “I’m your elder and your better; you’ll do as I command you. Now take this wretched object‑”

“That’d be me,” Gudge said stolidly.

“Shut up, Gudge,” Prince Lorimel put in for no better reason than to keep in practice.

“‑put an iron collar and a pair of cuffs on him, take him out of here, and get rid of him,” Beverel went on. “I don’t much care how you do it as long as you have the castle limner make detailed sketches of the really juicy bits, afterward.”

Vug’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, Beverel,” she said. “As you command.” She went about freeing Gudge from his fetters and saddling him with the prescribed iron collar, leading chain, and traveling manacles, according to her received orders, then gave him a shy look. “Er, shall we go?” she asked timidly.

Beverel uttered a loud growl of impatience and demanded of Prince Lorimel, “Do you see what I have to put up with?”

“My poor, suffering darling,” the elf prince replied, batting his eyelashes madly. “Tell me all your troubles. Let me share your pain.” He turned a glowering visage to Gudge and in a voice of fiery wrath bellowed, “Don’t just stand there, you moron! Help that stupid girl get you out of our sight before she upsets my beautiful Beverel any further. Go!”

Gudge eyed his master with a look of cool disdain worthy of a Lofty Elf. So perfectly belittling was that glance that it gave Prince Lorimel the optic equivalent of being smacked right in the chops with a sizeable halibut. Even the lovely‑but‑cruel Beverel was shocked to see an expression of so much authority upon the countenance of such a previously underestimated supporting character.

But all Gudge said was, “Well, we’ll just be off then, m’lud,” and he headed up the dungeon steps with a bemused and doubtful Vug in tow.

Once they were beyond the dungeon door and had stepped gingerly over the puddled troll in the corridor, Gudge turned to Vug and said, “Beggin’ yer Depravity’s pardon, but this be as far as I can go ’thout ’ee gives me some d’rections, seein’ as how I be a stranger to Castle Bonecrack.”

Vug blushed a becoming shade of rosy pink. “Of course; how silly of me. This way, if you please.” She gave Gudge’s leash a tug, but it was really more of a gentle waggle that didn’t even make the links clank together.

By way of fetid passageways, dimly lit and vermin‑haunted stairwells, musty rooms rank with the stench of ageless evil, and the back door to the kitchen, Vug at last brought Gudge out into the light of day. The elf prince’s castoff servant blinked to accustom his eyes to the long‑missed brightness and filled his lungs with the sweet air of the little herb garden whither Vug had conducted him.

“Ah, ’tis true as they say,” Gudge opined, a look of beatific calm and resignation on his face. “A garden’s a lovesome thing, th’ gods wot, where t’ be cruelly done t’ death by an evil overlord’s daughter what’s as wicked as she’s beautiful. All right then, young lady: I be as ready naow as ever t’ perish, aye. Just say t’ word as to where ’ee’d find it most cornveenent fer me t’ stand whilst ’ee rends me limb from limb, if that’s yer pleasure.”

“Rend you limb from‑? Oh my, no!” Vug dropped Gudge’s lead chain and clapped both hands to her face in an access of dismay.

“Nay?” Gudge gave her a speculative look. “Then I’m t’ die by murd’rous sorcery, aye?”

Vug shook her head in the negative so hard that she whapped herself across the mouth several times with both braids. “Not that. I couldn’t stand doing that to anyone.”

By now Gudge was truly flummoxed. “Not death by steel nor death by sorcery? What’s left, then? Ah, wait, I knows th’ answer! ’Tis poison as must send me into th’ shadows.” He slapped his forehead as best he could without breaking his own nose with the manacles binding his wrists. “How could I’ve forgot summat that simple? An’ this here garden where ’ee’ve brang me, m’lady, no doubt’s the source fer the venom as’ll be my doom, aye?” He bent over and plucked a large tuft of leaves from the nearest plant. “Well, as me old slut of a Mum used t’ say, don’t be shy, no one’s gettin’ any younger, no time like the present, and bottoms up!”

He stuffed the leaves into his mouth, chewed lustily, and swallowed, then stood by with a look of uncomplaining anticipation.

“Er, sir?” Vug tapped her captive lightly on the shoulder. “That was basil.”

“Oh, aye?” Gudge ran his tongue over his teeth, dislodging a few clingy green shreds. “An’ what’d poor ol’ Basil do wrong fer ’ee t’ be turnin’ ’im inter a poisonous shrub?”

Vug patiently corrected Gudge’s misapprehension. He listened attentively, then said, “I see. Well now, in that case, I’d be obleeged if ’ee’d point me at th’ nearest properly lethal veggie. Meanin’ no offense t’ yer Dread Badness, fer ’tis not yer comp’ny as I’m findin’ teedjus, but on th’ other hand, there’s no sense puttin’ off th’ inevitable, nay. Th’ sooner I’m dead an’ gone, th’ sooner I can stop bein’ scairt a mere halfway t’ death o’ dyin’, as is me present state o’ mind. So… got any henbane?”

Vug began to weep. “Oh, please stop being so nice about this!” she wailed. “It’s bad enough my having to kill you without your being helpful about it. Really, it’s too cruel!”

At this point, Gudge’s bewilderment had reached that level where the bewilderee begins to question his own sanity. In such cases, matters have come to such a cognitively dissonant head that the only two possible explanations are:

That the whole world has gone mad or:

That the witness to such alleged madness is himself irredeemably ’round the twist.

Most people placed in such a lose‑lose situation tend to get rather testy about it. Gudge was no exception.

“Naow look’ee here, Missy!” he exclaimed, rattling his manacles in a monitory manner. “What’s all this blubberin’ about? Ain’t ’ee heerd th’ rules what governs dark an’ evil overlords an’ th’ fruit o’ their dark an’ evil loins? Yer th’ daughter o’ Lord Belg, aye?”

“Aye. I mean, yes,” Vug said in a miserable voice not much above a whisper.

“An’ ’ee knows yon rules of which I speak?”

This time Vug merely nodded.

“Then what’s holdin’ ’ee back from slaughterin’ me, seein’ as how th’ rules says ’ee’ve got t’ be as wicked as yer beautiful? Fer if that’s so, ’ee must needs be th’ wickedest creetur as ever breathed.”

It was now Vug’s turn to put sanity on the witness stand to determine when it had left the premises.

“You… you think I’m that evil‑I mean, that beautiful?” she asked Gudge.

“Aye, m’lady.” Gudge’s face broke into a rapturous smile. “ ’Ee be th’ fairest thing as I’ve ever seen, an’ ’tis me one consolement, here on th’ brink o’ death hisself, t’ have been able t’ get me an eyeful o’ such pulchritude as yer own. Now let me die, fer ’tis me sad and sorrowful fate that‑”

“Shut up, Gudge,” said Vug, and she threw him down and had him in the basil.

Some time later, Gudge sat up and scraped impromptu pesto out of his hair. “You know, if this is the way you’re going to kill me, my lady, I feel honor bound to tell you that it’s not working,” he said. “Not that I’m complaining, you understand.”

Vug sat bolt upright and stared at him as though he’d sprouted radishes. “You can talk?” she exclaimed. “I mean, you can talk like that? Did I just break some kind of evil enchantment on you? Usually it only takes a kiss. Daddy always did say I was an overachiever.”

Gudge shrugged. “This is the way I speak. It’s not much help in the job market, though. Outside of their house‑and‑palace domestics, the Lofty Elves only hire servants who speak fluent Bumpkinshire, for some reason. Ooo, arrh, aye,” he added for effect, and tugged his forelock is the approved Rustic Underling manner.

“Then the Lofty Elves are all a bunch of smug, affected, bullying twits,” Vug said grimly. “Just like Beverel. That mean, greedy thing knows that I’m the one who’s supposed to take care of all our prisoners, but did that stop h‑”

Gudge stemmed the flow of her complaints against Beverel with a kiss. “My sweet Vug, I’m beginning to realize that your definition of taking care of prisoners is not one to be followed by ‘Mwahaha,’ true?”

Vug smiled and kissed him back. “I should hope not! The only proper way to take care of prisoners is seeing that they’ve got enough to eat and drink, that their cells aren’t too dank or too warm, that all the dungeon rats have had their rabies shots, that their manacles aren’t too tight or too‑Wait, let me get that for you.”

She spoke a word of power and Gudge’s irons dropped away from neck and wrists. “That’s better.” She favored him with a smile. “Anyway, that’s how I take care of prisoners. Beverel makes fun of me, but it can’t be helped. There’s no getting around the rules: the evil overlord’s daughter must always be as wicked as she is beautiful, and just look at me! Once I put on a little bit of lipstick and kicked Daddy’s favorite hellhound, but I felt terrible about it afterward.”

Gudge took her in his newly freed arms. “Bother the rules,” he said. “I say you are beautiful, even if you’re nowhere near wicked. Your father’s minions can recapture me, drag me back down into that dungeon, torture me, and I’ll still say so.”

“Oh, you’re not going back to any nasty old dungeon, dearest Gudge,” Vug said, kissing the tip of his nose. “I’m not finished taking care of you yet, and the best way to do that is to make sure that you escape from Castle Bonecrack safely. We don’t want Daddy getting his paws on you. He’s a lamb, once you get to know him, but he’s just not a people person. Or an elf person. Or a troll person. Or a whatever‑the‑blazes‑you‑are person. Now just say the word and I’ll fix you up with a spirited horse swifter than the wind, a casket of jewels beyond price, a nice picnic lunch with extra pickles, and a map showing the fastest way out of Daddy’s realm.”

Gudge kissed her again. It was getting to be a very pleasant habit. “Can I make a request about the lunch?” he asked.

“You don’t want pickles?”

“Pack enough for two.”

“You… you want me to come with you?” Vug couldn’t believe her ears. “None of the other prisoners I’ve freed ever‑” She blinked away tears. “Beverel always said that was because I was far too ugly for any of them to‑”

“Darling Vug, do you think I give a fig for what your spiteful sister says?” Gudge demanded. “My fool of an ex‑master’s in the middle of seducing that vile wench as we speak, and I hope he succeeds because those two deserve each other.”

“Sister?” Vug’s brows rose in perplexity. “I don’t have any sisters. Beverel’s my bro‑”

The shriek that blasted from the dungeon depths to the topmost pinnacle of Castle Bonecrack interrupted Vug’s revelation. It embodied equal degrees of discovery, shock, incredulity, and despair, together with a string of impressive curses in the tongue of the Lofty Elves. (These were rather specific curses, usually reserved for merchants who sold gilt for gold, nutmegs carved from wood, or beef potpies that had once answered to the name Fido.)

It ended with a different voice cackling “Mwahaha!” just before the final FOOM!

Gudge turned to his beloved. “So… about that horse?”

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE OVERLORD by David Bischoff

T he time has come in these memoirs to discuss the nadir of my career. I, Vincemole Whiteviper, have had my ups and downs, my ins and outs, my evenings before and my mornings after. However, say what you will of me, I am intelligent enough still to appreciate the bitter wormwood‑flavored irony of the fact that I fell to my deepest under from my biggest over.

Pah! To think! I stood then on a vasty plateau of grandeur, master of men, elf, fairie, and other ilk, up to my earlobes in delightful atrocities and fiendish plots, in my physical prime and indulgent in decadence and debauchery beyond mere pleasure. To think that at such a zenith of my star’s rise I should suffer the lowest blow of a life battered and torn by fate.

Need I tell you, Rotvole, that there was a woman involved in this indignity?

I’m drunk as a vat‑worm, so the transcription will be difficult. Why do I hold this different sword from my collection? Why do I swing it around so? This was the weapon with which I have judged in the past. This was the weapon that lopped off the head of a god. I clutch it, and the memories gush forth.

Bring that dictation‑gem closer, for my mournful words will sometimes be low and mumbled. Please, and pour yourself a brandy, and avail yourself of these fresh handkerchiefs for weeping. It is time to tell sad stories of the death of… things.

I wish I could say I achieved my high position, my power over so many lands, so many lives, and so many riches through cunning, intelligence, machinations, or even a backstab or three.

Alas I came by my good fortune in the same manner I came into so much in my picaresque career‑I blundered into it.

Readers of these memoirs will remember that for the portion of my life that I was not apprentice to a master hooligan or lying low in some godforsaken inn somewhere, drunk, I was a soldier. Call me a mercenary if you like, call me a multiple patriot, but there being many kingdoms in this vast world, I have served many kings‑and served them well, I might add.

However, after an unfortunate incident involving a princess, a chastity belt, a file, and the vengeful fury of one of these selfsame kings, I thought it best to retreat to the nether regions of this world, the far, undisciplined reaches to seek something that military service had not yet given me: a vast amount of loot. Yes, I became a soldier of fortune, and it was in the weird and mysterious land of Worpesh that I found myself as far from that aforementioned king’s wrath as geography would allow.

Now as my speedy flight had prevented me from taking much in the way of revenue, I had to pick up what I could along the way, through odd jobs and dark alleys. Not a glorious life, but there’s no place like the streets to pick up skills and sharpen one’s survival mechanisms. Once I’d made it to Worpesh, though, on ship and camel, on coach and steed, I was disappointed to discover that while the pickings were actually less (dark alleys were inhabitated by nothing but the poor and other cutpurses) the dangers were more. Oh, it was a dreadful place!

Yes, supposedly there were lost cities piled with treasure‑plenty of farthing maps to them for sure. But you had to traipse through steaming jungles full of quicksand, giant prickle‑snakes, and saber‑toothed werecats to achieve them. I fully suspected that perhaps it was the snakes and cats who made the maps to lure supper into their jaws, so I was not terribly tempted. Moreover in the humid and foul land, half the populace was leprous or diseased in some fashion, and in truth where it did not stink to high heaven it stank to low hell.

One night, I took my disappointment and depression to a bar, and there drank the sole alcoholic offering: some kind of fermented milk. Nasty, but with enough nutrition that some of the natives lived on it, I think. I was half in my cups, plotting some method of returning to lands of proper dank shivers and warm soothing beers, when a voice called out to me from the depths of a large booth.

“Ahoy there, matey. Be you from more northern climes?”

“Aye,” I said.

“From the cut of your jib, I’d take you to be a soldier. And a strong, fine one at that.”

“That I am,” I said. “Fought in many a battle, skirmish, and war, with scars enough I suppose.”

“And you’re here in Worpesh to seek a better life.”

I hiccuped and laughed. “Is that written on my forehead?”

A rueful chuckle. “No, I see myself hunkered at that bar. Come and join me, and drink something a bit better than that swill in front of you.”

Well, I had a dagger in my belt and a knife in my boot, so even though that booth was dim, I had protection. And as I felt that I was growing cheese in my gut now, I longed for anything better than what I was drinking. So I abandoned my swill and approached, albeit warily.

“Come, come, my friend, I won’t bite!” called a hearty voice. A candle flickered within and by its light I saw a man in a hood sitting back nonchalantly. One of his hands was on a lifted knee and one was around a bottle. “Come and have a drink with one of your countrymen from the land of swords and honor.”

He lifted the bottle and poured out an amber liquid.

“Whiskey?” I said, astonished.

“Aye, sir. And good whiskey at that. Won’t you have a glass?”

He threw back his hood, and I saw blue eyes, pearly teeth, dimples, and a jolly smile. He pushed the glass over to the other side of the bench.

I sat down, lifted the glass, sipped it. I tasted poison. However, a fine and beautiful poison.

I drank it down in a gulp, and was rewarded with feeling good for the first time in months.

“Thank you stranger. The name’s Whiteviper.”

“And mine is Divort. Dinny Divort. Would you care for a cigarillo?” This selfsame Dinny Divort produced a humidor from the darkness. The aroma drifted over, a gentle and perfect complement to the whiskey. I availed myself. Ah, the rasp of crinkling leaves between thumb and forefinger. “Thank ’ee.”

He selected one for himself, stuck it in his mouth. He snapped his fingers, and his thumb came alight. I jumped back a bit, then grinned. “Again, thank ’ee,” I said, leaning into the flame. The plumes of smoke that arose twirled with subtle shades of alabaster, cerulean, and cinnabar. The taste of the smoke was wonderfully superb.

“A magician, then,” I said.

“A know a few things about the arcane arts, yes.” And when he brought the flame up to light his cigarillo, I saw that he had a star tatooed upon one pale cheek. “But I too am a soldier.”

“Of fortune?”

“Of fate. Of destiny.” He blew out a flume: it twirled into shapes of spangly coins, glittery gems. “Rich fate, rich destiny. This is why I have called upon you, Sir Whiteviper. I sense we are two of a kind. You have need of me and, without a doubt, I have need of you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I may look naï̈ve, sirrah, but I may tell you, I have not had good luck in my dealing with beings who know magic.”

He shrugged. “I know not magic. I am no true magician. I served, Whiteviper, as a carny in a traveling bazaar. Aye, I know a little bit of the true arts, but in truth most of what I do are show tricks.” He blew out his thumb. “I keep myself well away from the deeper magic that would steal men’s souls.”

“Sorcerors are often liars.”

Again a shrug. “Why don’t we talk a bit, drink some drink, smoke some smoke. I would like to work with you, sir. But don’t you think if I were a true sorceror, dark or white, I would seek to enchant you rather than persuade you?”

“You flatter my intelligence, Dinny Divort.”

“There is much to flatter, Whiteviper.”

I allowed that I would stay and listen for a couple more drinks, knowing full well that I was captured by the mere promise of the jingle of coins in my pocket. Clearly this fellow could avail me that much. If I chose not to go along with his plan, I could just follow him to a back alley and take his money in return for a lump on his noggin.

If he knew of my plans, he made no sign of it.

I listened.

Three or four drinks later, I agreed to his plan.

The next day, we were on our way to the outmost of the Outer Territories, in the tippy‑toppy reaches of Just Beyond Beyond, to take our destined positions of High and Rightful Overlords.

“You see, Sir Whiteviper,” Dinny Divort had said, leaning forward into the miasma of smoke back at that tavern of our meeting. “All my life I have sought money. I inherited the want from my carny background. But in fact, during my days slogging and grogging about on the borders of things, it started to occur to me that what I really was in want of was power, for power can create riches and more. And in my heart of hearts, I realized that since I am no ordinary man‑no, nor are you, Sir Whiteviper‑I need no ordinary power.”

Divort diddled his fingers. A rainbow extended from hand to hand, imbued with tinkling musics. Insense seemed to writhe from the emerald, perfume from the crimson. Herein was an intimation of the Fantastic, the Wholly Marvelous that I had witnessed before in my checkered career, and in truth yearned for above all else.

In a breath, it was gone.

I felt a grave sadness, for these glimpses of something Wonderful Beyond always seemed to thus disappear. I felt empty, and was made aware of my abject poverty.

Again, as though reading my mind, Divort reached up into the dimness above his head. He seemed to pluck something from thin air. Drawing it down, he displayed his catch: a pouch. It banged and jingled metallically upon the wooden table between us.

“Half of all the money I have, Whiteviper. We share and we share alike in this venture, sir. Take your half and join me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Naturally I wonder if I can trust your purposes here. Why me?”

“Take the money, Whiteviper. Easier than stealing it, don’t you think? Don’t you truly wonder, why does this fool think he can trust me?”

By turning the tables he caught me by surprise. I laughed heartily. “You’re calling me a rogue, sir. Aye, that will cost you!”

I snatched the pouch before he could take it away. Inside were nine gold pieces, just enough to make my way back to healthier climes.

“Ah, but the rogue I see has dreams. I see myself in you, Whiteviper. Come and find your heart’s desire. Come and find the power you crave. Power and glory shall be ours. You see, where I take us, there is a prophecy of brother gods‑a duo‑that will come and inherit a vast prize. I have magic, but I cannot create a brother, Whiteviper.”

Another drink of whiskey was enough to convince me and we drank the bottle down. The exact details of our talk escape me from that point onward, and I must have passed out, for I found myself in a delirium later, lying in a pool of my own sick, daylight creeping through the cracks in the window. I gasped and reached to make sure there was no knife in my back. I was alive, and still in possession of all nine pieces of gold. Above me, eating breakfast and drinking a steaming cup of the local tea, was Divort.

“Oh, two more details, Whiteviper. For the magic to work, sir, for the duration of our power and glory, you must swear off alcohol and women.”

The very notion of either made me retch. My only comfort were those pieces of gold my new friend had bestowed upon me.

My first decree, to my own self, was that during the rule of Vincemore Whiteviper, there were to be no hangovers!

And in truth, a few days into our journey up toward Beyondastan, I woke up with the taste of fresh mountain air in my lungs and nary a pain between my temples. Dinny Divort had proven to be a fine partner, full of jolly stories and good cheer. Away from the damp and warm and stink below, I felt my own self once more.

In fact, I felt very well indeed!

“You look good, Whiteviper. Your foreswearance of strong drink does your constitution well, I think.”

“Perhaps,” I said, stretching. “But even now I’m thinking of the pleasures of lying in furs with a naked and nubile female.”

“Ah, nothing wrong with desire for either drink or women in our promise. Just in the taking. Besides, consider: perhaps a time without women will make you feel even better than a time without strong drink. Indeed, there are philosophies that state that when a man evacuates his seed into a woman, he loses his power. Properly controlled, that power, still inside the man, builds up keen perception, control‑power. It is a gnosis‑an inner light that burns from the essense of his being!”

After some nice tea and bacon and hardbread, I forgot about women, lost in the scenery. For glorious indeed were the mountains upon which we were stumpy, snowy legs of gods lifting up to majestic peaks, or sometimes, just peaks.

Divort had an old map he said was drawn up upon human skin. And a good thing too, for there were many forks and intersections of paths in this mountains.

We had a couple of pack mules to carry supplies, fortunately‑and me as well at times, for in truth I was never a traveler with much stamina, usually traveling only from one tavern to another while between soldiering bouts. However, by the third day in the mountains, when I was accustomed to the rarefied air, without the drink, I found I had more strength and preferred to walk instead of suffer donkey stench.

It did not take long to see why no one made this trip often. In the nooks and crannies of this trail lived not just brigands and thieves, but creatures of marvelous horror. Furry snakes slithered and abominable stick folk hobbled, fully half their bodies claws and fangs, the rest hunger. However, here too Divort’s bag of tricks broke the way for us: He flashed fires of intense strength at them, burning some to piles of ash, singeing others. By night the most awful sounds gurgled and spat around our campfire‑but nothing seemed to dare venture beyond the sparkle of the protective spell that surrounded us.

“You well may wonder from which power is drawn this source of this magic‑and I tell you,” said Divort one morning, after smoting a weregoat with lightning blast. “It is you.”

“Me?” I said, looking down with distaste at the scorpion tail that writhed poisonously from the beast.

“Aye! Your puissance grows! Unmanacled from the drink that sapped you, and with your chi stoppered up and not serving women, you are a factory of power. I salute you, sir.”

In truth, for all of that, I still felt a want, and wondered aloud if I might try drinking women and rogering ale. Divort’s laugh was so hearty, and he slapped my back in comradeship, I hadn’t the heart to tell him I was not jesting.

Oh, I could bog down this tale for a space with tales of the cat‑dragons, the gnarl‑critters, the brouga‑brougas we fought. Alas, our donkeys were caputured and eaten alive by a cyclops, whom we managed to prevent from eating us by dint of a vast expenditure of Divort’s magic fire.

Two weeks of travel! Two whole weeks, and our supplies were gone, so we lived on any creatures Divort could cook and on melted snow.

And when I saw that we had to scale a snowy mount for the last leg, I nearly lost faith. But it was Divort’s jokes and good cheer that goaded me onward despite myself. That, and my own dreams and fantasies, considering what I would do with this vast power that awaited me. To think, no longer to take orders, but to give them! To think, no longer to be forced to work for my keep, but to rest if I liked, wander if I liked‑to kick the behinds of vassals, if I liked.

At the crest of the hill, there in afternoon glow, at an elevation higher above sea level than I had ever yet attained, I saw the turrets and towers of a diamond city, awash in gold and sapphire.

Divort grinned and chuckled.

“Aye, Whiteviper. Our goal is near. There, my new brother, is our goal, finally‑The OverEye.”

Ah, yes, and a beauteous city it was too, OverEye.

A dazzling sheen arose from its stone walls to its lofty spires, coruscating with glinting color. Prisms echoed spectra of ocher, brilliantine, and topaz in a most aesthetic manner. All in all, it seemed indeed a city of glass. And yet, with the feeling of both magnification and dimunition in this city, the impression that most swept over me as we gazed upon this wondrous places was that it was a collection of lenses.

I said as much to Divort.

“Aye, that is the reputation of OverEye,” he said beneath his breath, also caught up in the majesty and the grandeur of the place. “It is said to be caught at a juncture of worlds, like the central sphere of an infinite bubble cluster‑and through its walls seep images of those worlds.” He nodded. “Aye, and portals there be.” He sighed and grinned. “And puppet strings as well.”