“You’ll survive by killing the dinosaurs and planting your own seed here?” I asked.
I sensed amusement from him. “So…” he answered slowly, “the hairless ape is not so knowledgeable after all.”
Sensing my confusion, Set went on: “The dinosaurs are mine to do with as I please. I created them. I brought my—seed, as you put it—to this planet nearly two hundred million of your years ago, when there was nothing on this land but a few toads and salamanders, fugitives from the seas.”
Set’s voice rose in my mind, took on a depth and power I had not experienced before. “I scrubbed this miserable planet clean to make room for my creations, the only kind of animal that could survive completely on dry land. I wiped out species by the thousands to prepare this world for my offspring.”
“You created the dinosaurs?” I heard an astonished voice pipe weakly. My own.
“They are the consequences of my work from two hundred million years before this time. The fruits of my genius.”
“But you went too far,” Anya said. “The dinosaurs have been too successful.”
He shifted his slitted gaze toward her. “They have done well. But now their time is at an end. This planet must be prepared for my true offspring.”
“The humanoids,” I said.
“The children of Shaydan. I have prepared this world for them.”
“Killer!” Anya spat. “Destroyer! Blunderer!”
I could feel his contempt for her. And a cold amusement at her words. “I kill to prepare the way for my own kind. I destroy life on a planetwide scale to make room for my own life. I do not blunder.”
“You do!” Anya accused. “You blundered two hundred million years ago. Now you must destroy your own creations because they have done too well. You blundered sixty-five million years from now, because the human race will rise up against you and your kind. You will be their symbol of unrelenting evil. They will be against you forever.”
“They will cease to exist,” Set replied calmly, “once my work here is finished. And you will cease to exist much sooner than that.”
All through this conversation, with Anya and I speaking and Set answering in silent mental projections, I strained to break through his control of my body. I knew Anya was doing the same. But no matter how hard we tried, we could not move our limbs. Even Juno, cowering by Anya’s feet, seemed unable to move.
“You’ll never be able to wipe out the dinosaurs,” I said. “We foiled your attempt to slaughter the duckbills and—”
He actually hissed at me. I sensed it was a form of laughter. “What did you accomplish, oversized monkey? On one particular day you helped a few hundred dinosaurs escape the death I had planned for them. They will meet that death on another day, perhaps next week, perhaps ten thousand years from now. I have all of time to work in, yammering ape. I created the dinosaurs and I will destroy them—at my leisure.”
With that, he beckoned to Juno. Our little duckbill seemed reluctant to go toward him, yet helpless to resist. Grudgingly, as if being pulled by an invisible leash, Juno plodded to the dais and lumbered up its three steps to the clawed feet of Set.
Anya flared: “Don’t!”
I strained with every atom of my being to break free of Set’s mental bonds. As I struggled I watched with horrified eyes as Set picked up Juno like a weightless toy. The baby duckbill squirmed, frightened, but could no more escape Set’s grasp than I could break free.
“Don’t!” Anya screamed again.
Set lifted Juno’s head up and sank his teeth into her soft unprotected throat. Blood gushed over him. The baby dinosaur gave a single piercing, whistling shriek that ended in a bubbling of blood. Its yellow eyes faded, its clumsy legs went limp.
I sensed Set’s smirking, smug feeling of triumph and power. He let Juno’s dead body, still twitching, fall to his feet and laughed mentally at Anya’s anguish.
And dropped his guard just a fraction. Enough for me to burst loose and hurl myself up the dais, my fingers reaching for Set’s red-scaled throat.
He swatted me with a backhand slap as easily as I might swat a fly. I was knocked sideways, tumbled down the dais, landing flat on my back, stunned and almost unconscious.
Chapter 22
Through a blood red haze I saw Set still on his throne. He had barely moved to deal with me.
“You think that I keep you paralyzed out of fear that you might attack me?” His voice in my buzzing brain was mocking. “Puny ape, I could crush your bones with ease. Fear me! For I am far mightier than you.”
Forcing the pain away, pumping extra blood to my head to drive away the wooziness, I pulled myself up to a sitting position, then got slowly, warily to my feet.
“You are not convinced?”
Anya was still locked into immobility, but the look on her face was awfuclass="underline" a mixture of loathing and helpless terror. Juno’s dead body lay sprawled clumsily at the foot of the dais in a welling pool of blood.
I could move. I took a step toward that throne and the monster sitting upon it.
Set rose to his full height and stepped down to the floor. He towered over me, several heads taller, a shoulder-span wider, his red scales glittering in the torchlight, his eyes burning with an amused contempt that overlay eternal hatred.
My senses went into hyperdrive and everything around me slowed. I saw the veins in Set’s skull pulsing, saw transparent eyelids flicking back and forth across the red slits of his pupils. I could see the muscles in Anya’s arms and legs tensing, straining to break free of Set’s mental control. In vain.
I went into a defensive crouch, hands up in front of my face, backing away from Set. He advanced toward me in total confidence, arms by his sides, the talons of his feet clicking on the smooth bare floor like a metronome counting off time.
I dove at his knees in a rolling block. Knock him down and his size advantage is lessened, I thought. But fast as I was, his reflexes were even faster. He caught me in the ribs with a kick that sent me sailing. I hit the floor painfully hard. With an effort I climbed to my feet. He was still advancing on me, hissing softly in his reptilian equivalent to laughter.
I feinted left, then drove my right fist toward his groin with all the strength in me. He blocked the blow with one huge hand and grabbed me by the throat with the other. Lifting me off my feet, he raised my head to his own level. We were face-to-face, me with my feet dangling a yard or more off the floor, the breath slowly being squeezed out of me.
Set’s face was in front of me, so close that I could smell the rancid hot breath hissing from his sharp-toothed mouth, see the glistening blood of Juno drying on his pointed chin. He was choking me to death and enjoying it.
With the last of my strength I jabbed both my thumbs at his eyes. He blocked my right with his free hand but my left found its mark. Set screeched in unexpected pain and threw me against the wall like an angry child tossing away a toy that displeased him.
I blacked out. My last conscious thought was a satisfied thrill that I had hurt the monster. Small consolation, but better than none at all.
How long I was unconscious I have no way of reckoning. I lay in darkness, huddled on the floor of Set’s throne chamber. Dimly I felt the sensation of being lifted up and carried somewhere. But I could see nothing, hear nothing. Then I was dumped onto a hard floor again and left alone.
From far, far away I heard a sound. A faint voice, calling. It was so distant, so indistinct, that I knew it had nothing to do with me.