Barak, stupid Barak. Let your last thought be this—your death helps me immeasurably."

"You're lying," I said again, and he laughed again.

"Reflect. Let your thick skull filter these facts. I shall destroy you. To my followers I will be a hero. Your own Newcomers will pause and wonder. I can re-order my defenses, and most of the planted mines will remain to check any advance—"

Forgetting all caution, all planning, I charged him. He turned and ran like Dondromogon's outer winds.

But I had taken no more than half a dozen steps in pursuit when all the thunders and lightnings of the universe seemed to burst around me.

I fell, swiftly and deeply, into black nothingness.

I was able to establish which way was up, which down, and that I lay horizontally, as if floating in liquid or upon clouds. My ears hummed a trifle, and a voice spoke.

"He will be all right."

Dr. Thorald! I opened my eyes, and they were blurred. I lifted a hand to them, and moaned despite myself.

"Were you killed, too?" I muttered.

"Killed? Not me. Nobody was killed, except that fat pig you met in the cavern. Not enough of him left to make a funeral worth while." Thorald looked behind him. "Ahoy, Parkeson! Cross! Barak's going to be all right."

The other two heads of the Newcomer expedition pushed into view, and looked down upon me where I lay.

"High time," grumbled Parkeson. "They're yelling for him—both sides. Barak, you'll have to drop all your weapons and take up political economy. I greatly fear you'll have a world to run."

"World?" I echoed stupidly. "What world?" My head cleared a bit. "Where's Doriza?"

"The fighting's over," Parkeson soothed me. "Just as you forced it to be. I'm still trying to decide whether you were an epic hero or an epic idiot, there at the crossways of battle, making us all stop, or fight you! But your hunch paid off. The entire Council of Dondromogon is dead, and—"

"Doriza," I said again.

"Somebody named Klob, a sturdy soldierly chap, is taking charge. An old sneak named Sporr tried to foment a counter-rising, but Klob disintegrated him. 

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