The Adversary - 4 Read Free Page A

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, SebiGomnol, who had plans of his own for advancing human domination 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 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, Elizabeth 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