With a corrupt shriek of anger and fear, Cyphallus fled to warn the King that all would be lost unless they could get to the Pixie woman in time, and prevent her from rescuing the Earth Mother from her prison of deafness and silence.
‘Beyond my Kingdom?’ the King responded, as though the words were incomprehensible to him. ‘Beyond . . . who knows what lies beyond? It is many generations since any of us left our own borders.’ He considered the problem for some time in silence. At last, he said, ‘It is a small thing, you say? Borne by one of those vermin that once infested My Kingdom? This is Her doing! She knows that I rid the Kingdom of Her minions because they were Her subjects, those spies and usurpers! How came the Pixie vermin by the thing?’
‘It was a Man,’ Cyphallus told him. ‘A blacksmith. The same that came with two others, brought to our world by the traitor, Pran.’
‘And these others,’ the King said, ‘who and what are they?’
‘One is a Healer,’ Cyphallus told him, ‘the other a young woman, apparently of no consequence, though her true purpose may have been concealed from us.’
‘And how is it that a mere blacksmith was able to fashion such a periapt?’ the old King asked him.