"Was Rabbit doing anything important?"
"Very, very important, Narasan. We found tons and tons of gold in Lady Aracia's temple, and Rabbit's been modifying gold bricks for us, but now he's gone. I've got several other men working on the modification, but they're not nearly as good as Rabbit."
"Just where did you find this gold, friend Sorgan?"
"You're not going to believe this, but the walls of Lady Aracia's throne room were made of solid gold blocks."
"When did that happen?" Narasan demanded. "When I was down there, her throne room was made of ordinary bricks."
"They might have looked ordinary," Sorgan replied, "but somebody down there was clever enough to disguise them."
"How did they do that?"
"As close as we were able to determine, they sprinkled sand on the molten gold while it was still cooling in the molds. The sand stuck to the gold and made it look like clay bricks. I'd say that one of those lazy priests was clever enough to disguise the gold—to keep us from finding out that it was there." He looked around. "Have you got anything to drink around here?" he asked.
"I'll go fetch a jug or two, Captain," Padan said, walking toward the door.
"How can people live in a place where it gets this cold?" Sorgan asked Narasan.
"Those bison-hide cloaks help quite a bit," Narasan replied.
"I'd hate to spend much time outside if I didn't have one, that's for sure," Sorgan agreed. "Oh, before I forget, I'm going to need several more of your ships down there in the harbor before long. The Ascension is a nice enough ship, I guess, but she can't carry all that gold by herself."
"How much are we talking about here, Sorgan?"
"What's the next word up from 'tons,' Narasan? We're a long way above 'tons' already, and there's still more that we haven't pulled out of the temple yet."
"I'd like to see some of it, Sorgan. I'm not calling you a liar or anything, but still—"
"I thought you'd never ask, Narasan," Sorgan said. Then he untied a leather pouch from his belt, opened it, and poured several fairly small gold blocks out onto the table just as Padan returned with two fairly large jugs.
"Pretty," Padan said, looking at the gold scattered across the table, "but why are you making such small chips?"
"I'm stealing another idea from you Trogites," Sorgan admitted. "We don't have gold coins over in the Land of Maag. We've got copper coins, brass ones, and a few made of silver, but for some reason, nobody there has ever considered gold coins."
"Square ones?" Narasan asked. "I don't think I've ever seen square coins."
"It was Rabbit's idea. He said that if we put out square coins, everybody would know that they came from the Land of Maag."
"Shouldn't you stamp a picture of somebody on those blocks?" Padan asked.
"A picture? Of who?"
"You, probably. You're the one who came up with the idea, after all, and if your picture is stamped into every one of them, the other Maags will think of you as their emperor."
"That never occurred to me," Sorgan admitted. "How do people go about doing that?"
"Etch the picture on the end of an iron rod, set the rod on the face of one of your gold blocks, and then rap the blank end with a hammer."
"How did you plan to distribute your new coins, friend Sorgan?" Narasan asked.
Sorgan shrugged. "I'll buy things—ships, houses, land. When you get right down to it, I probably will be the emperor of Maag, since I'll own everything there, and I'll be able to hire an army to make everybody there bow down to me. And friend Narasan here will be able to buy the Trogite Empire too, since half of the gold will be his."
"How did you come up with that idea, Sorgan?" Narasan asked, more than a little surprised.
"We're partners, friend Narasan, and I never cheat a partner. You should know that by now."
"I seem to be about neck-deep in emperors," Padan said. Then he pulled the cork out of one of the jugs he'd just carried into the room. "Let's drink to that, shall we?" he suggested.
"I thought you'd never ask," Sorgan declared with a broad grin.
Ara had been checking her assorted ovens, and then, with a sort of reluctant expression on her beautiful face, she joined Narasan and Sorgan at the large table where they'd been talking with each other for the better part of an hour. "I think there's something you gentlemen should know," she said.
"It's almost supper-time?" Sorgan asked her with a grin on his face.
"Very funny, Hook-Beak," she replied. "I don't want to ruin your day, mighty soldiers, but my mate has decided to put an end to this war right about now."
"So that's why he came down to temple-town and filched Rabbit," Sorgan said.
"I think you just lost me, friend Sorgan," Narasan said.
"The farmer's clever enough to realize that Longbow, Rabbit, and your man Keselo have made an excellent team during the previous wars. I'm fairly sure that if we looked around we wouldn't find any of them here in Gunda's fort." He looked at Ara then. "As I understood what people have been saying correctly, you and your mate can stay in touch with each other even if you're a thousand miles apart. That suggests that you know exactly what he and his friends are up to."
"Oh, yes, and a thousand miles only begins to describe how far we can reach when we need to. Up until quite recently, he wasn't fully aware of that. Then he had a Dream that went much farther than the Dreams of the children."
"A Dream about what's going to happen out in the Wasteland?" Narasan asked.
"No. That's sort of beside the point, though. Omago's Dream told him just who—and what—he really is. Now he knows that he can eliminate the Vlagh and all of her puppies. He picked up that team that's been so useful in the past, and they went across the Wasteland to the nest of the Vlagh."
"Isn't that sort of dangerous?" Narasan asked. "As far as we can tell, the Wasteland's crawling with the children of the Vlagh."
"Not anymore," Ara replied, "and even if they were out there by the thousands, they wouldn't be able to see our friends."
"When would you say that they'll reach the nest of the Vlagh?" Narasan asked.
"Actually, distance doesn't mean anything to Omago, and neither does time. They're there already."
"What's at the core of his scheme?" Sorgan asked.