"You can hear them."

Listening, Malovel caught an echo of a shout, then a burst of phuts. For a second he was startled. Then a gleam appeared in his eyes. As he had thought they would if he stopped the water for the fields, the humans had attacked the palace. Now he had a chance to use the esse again, to taste to the full the surge of power that came to him when he used that weapon.

At his word of command, the slave swung up in front of him what looked like a frosted mirror but which revealed what was happening where he sent the esse. The mirror showed a corridor, with Martians and humans fighting there.

A look of vast satisfaction appeared on Malovel's face. He caressed the squares on the arms of his throne chair.

"Once a bargain was made, Holy One," a voice said behind him.

Malovel spun in his chair. He stared in horror at what he saw there. The human, Sanderson, and the Martian, L'Sor. A Martian traitor! Behind them a secret door was open in the wall, a relic of the long-gone days when Malovel had used that exit. He had forgotten its existence. But L'Sor had smelled it out. Both the human and the Martian held the little weapons that the humans called bum-bum guns. L'Sor's weapon menaced the slave, who stood motionless.

"A bargain was made four years ago," Sanderson said.

"I changed my mind."

"Why?"

"Perhaps to start this fight, to give myself the pleasure of destroying you."

As he spoke, Malovel's fingers pressed a square. The human might be fast with the bum-bum gun but the esse was faster than any human action, as fast as light itself. As Malovel pressed the square, the esse formed.

A scream sounded in the room. Sanderson was shoved to one side. The esse caught something, Malovel did not quite see what it was. He poured power into it. Malovel caught a glimpse of the doll forming as the mighty fingers of the esse squeezed life from it.

A glimpse was all he caught. A bum-bum slug splashed his head over the room. The eager glow in his eyes seemed to turn into a yellow 

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