forget meeeeee! It was Eygor's last word, for the moment at least.
Nathan fled to the great hall, slowed down a little and headed wearily for his room. But in the passageway he ran into Orlea, who caught his arm to steady him. She saw his condition but made no comment except to tell him, 'Maglore wants you ...'
In his spacious apartments Maglore paced to and fro, not worriedly but perhaps contemplatively, as if he deliberated upon some course of action. Approaching him, Nathan wondered what was on his mind. He suspected that this would not be the best time to try reading it, which was confirmed almost at once.
'Mentalism,' Maglore said enigmatically, but as yet not threateningly. He came to a halt, crooked a finger, and beckoned Nathan closer. 'Telepathy. There was a time when I asked you if you knew the meaning of it, to which you answered no.'
Nathan's shields were up, his thoughts impregnable. 'I remember, master.'
Chapter 29
'Ah!' Maglore sighed and shook his head sadly. 'You remember, do you? And so we are come to this. You my friend and companion, a liar who hides his every waking thought from me. And why? Because if I were to see inside your head, I would know the treachery you plan.'
Nathan shook his head. His mouth was dry as dust but he forced words out of it anyway. 'I have planned no treachery against you, master.' It was true, and because his words were simple they carried conviction. No treachery against Maglore, but merely an escape from him ... Nathan clamped down on the thought at once. If Maglore were to suspect that he and Karz Biteri plotted flight ... and again he screwed the lid down on the contents of his mind. The effort caused perspiration to break out on his forehead.
Maglore saw it and smiled. 'You are hot, my son.'
'I've hurried,' Nathan answered.
The other nodded, and thought: Aye, and you're never lost for an answer, are you? No, for you are clever, and will serve my purpose ideally! You shall be my eyes and ears on the works of my enemies: those who exist now, across the world in Olden Starside, and those who are yet to be.
Maglore's probes were groping at the slippery, rotating wall of the numbers vortex, trying to find purchase there and so form a link with Nathan's mind. But it was a one-way system: Nathan read Maglore, but the Seer Lord couldn't read him! His mentalism was greater than Maglore's; he read him effortlessly, without even trying to, and as yet without attempting to understand what he read. And with the knowledge of his mental superiority, something of Nathan's confidence returned.
'And so you've hurried here,' Maglore nodded. 'Indeed you have - but from where?'
Obviously he knew, and Nathan dared not lie about it. 'I went down into Madmanse, but there was something there. I felt it, a presence. I fled before it, and returned here.'
Clever. He will survive. Why, this one might even try to outwit Shaitan himself. Maglore withdrew his probes and turned abruptly away. And his voice was slightly sour as he said, 'In your dreams you are not so stubborn.'
'My dreams?' So it had been Maglore after all. Unable to spy upon Nathan's waking mind, he had attempted to invade his sleep. But how often, and how well had he succeeded? 'Have you looked upon my dreams? But what harm is there in dreaming? And is it treachery to dream of freedom? I have no control over my dreams, master.'
Maglore faced him. 'You have no sinister purpose, then?'
'None.' Only a desperate desire to be out of here now; to convince Karz that we must flee; to get back to my own hind in OJden Sunside. But his secret mind was shielded, of course.
Then I've accused you falsely and you deserve an explanation,' Maglore nodded, however reluctantly; or was that, too, only part of the game which he played? 'Very well, I will tell you: The time rapidly approaches when I shall be master here. Not only in Runemanse, but the gorge entire, Tur-gosheim itself! You will have noticed how the Lords have perfected their flying warriors? I know you have. And for what? An attack upon Olden Starside and the renegade Wratha, who destroyed your tribe and in so doing sent you to me. Four months, sixteen sunups, until they set out. But Maglore stays here! I shall "keep" the gorge for Vormulac and be its caretaker, while the