Wheel of Anime:  Book 2 - The Hunt Is On
Prologue:  An Evil Garden Party

By John Biles

http://www.thekeep.org/~wombat/Jordan/


********

	The man who, in this company, called himself Fred (because if he
had a choice, he would have been named Fred, but was he given a choice?
Nooooo, he wasn't.  Stupid parents, stupid naming customs, did they think
about how many jokes he'd have to put up with?  Of course not.), pulled
his hood up a little bit tighter and adjusted his green mask.  Dozens of
people circulated through the pleasant green garden, just as if this was
some nobleman's garden party.

	In a manner of speaking, it was, for there were none more noble
than the Chosen, the Thirteen who had been bound into the Bore with the
Great Lord of the Dark for three thousand years.  They were set above all
others.  He was not sure, however, which of them was throwing this party.
The one who had summoned him, summoned them all, answered to the name of
Sch'neider, but that was the one of the Great Lord's own names.  If the
Great Lord was this free already, surely they would have seen his touch
more strongly on the world.

	Fred was not a religious man, despite his affiliations.  He was
simply a man who knew which way the wind blew and how to gain power.  That
was what he wanted, above all other things.  Some of those around him were
true believers.  Others, like him, simply followed their own best
interest.  And some were probably gullible idiots who had gotten in way
over their heads.

	But for now, they were all equals, in theory, and those among them
who were wise concealed their identities as best they could.  This made it
hard to tell who had disguised themselves and who had not.  He glanced at
a dark-haired woman in a long black dress in the style of Andor.  A
cunning disguise, except that she had forgotten to take off her marriage
knife, which marked her as Ebou Dari.  Or was that a bluff?  She could
easily have been, say, Arafellin, instead.

	People from every nation milled about, sipping tea and trading
pleasantries while they waited for their master to arrive.  A Tinker was
chatting merrily with an Illuminator about how best to blow things up with
fireworks.  An Andoran noblewoman traded poisoning tips with a beggar.
Two people who had chosen the exact same disguise as a SubNazi (badly
done, he could tell, as they'd forgotten to put the sunburst or the maple
leaf on it) bantered with each other, apparently trying to winkle out each
other's identities while discussing Cairhienin politics.  Two
Borderlanders, one with the distinctive hairstyle of Kandor, the other a
pale-haired man wearing Shienarian livery, argued over the events of the
battle at Fallintothe Gap and what it could mean; the Kandorian could not
even believe it was real.  The pale-haired man said something about the
Eye of God which Fred couldn't quite make out.

	He kept his own mouth shut, knowing he had a distinctive accent
and how hard it was to overcome the Illianer way of speech.  There was
much to be gleaned, just from listening.

	A whisper ran through the crowd, and he turned his head to look.
A tall man with long red hair had arrived; he wore a golden fox mask, and
was accompanied by a shorter woman with close cropped blue hair.  Both
wore something which looked like a military uniform to Fred, but not one
he recognized.  Curious, he thought.  I'll have to look this up.  Whispers
followed in their wakes.

	And then Dark Sch'neider appeared in all his blond, barbaric
glory.  Apparently, he'd left all his shirts in the Bore.  But with a
highly muscular body like his, this wasn't so bad as it might have been.
His eyes burned with dark flame, his gaze transfixed all it touched.

	"Friends of the Dark!  The day of our triumph is coming.  The
plans of three thousand years come to fruition!  Those who obey me will
triumph and taste of immortality!  Those who disobey will be cast into the
valley of garbage and BURNT!"  Flames from his hands consumed a nearby
bush, destroying it in seconds.

	"The Tower thinks it can stop us; the Tower will fall.  The
SubNazis think they are free of us; we shall take them from within.  The
nations think us a myth; we shall show them reality!  And three...three
there are who think they shall defy us.  You will take them.  Two may be
slain, the third is best taken alive, but you can slay him if you must."

	He gestured and the air filled with the image of three men, a
tall, thin blond and two muscular dark-haired men, all three of them on
the cusp of transition to adulthood.  "Remember them.  Slay the two and
save the third."  The third one now glowed to mark him apart.  "Do this
and you will be rewarded!  Fail me and YOU WILL PERISH!"

	Fred studied the three people, and wondered how such insignificant
looking children could be a threat.

	"And, for each of you, I have other work as well," he said.  He
began going to each of them, and staring into their eyes with his black
flames.  Fred watched, seeing each person shudder as he gazed into their
eyes.

	His own turn came.  The black flames drew him in and consumed him,
burning and remaking him, searing images into his mind.  Blue-skinned men
and women, a dignified man with white hair and blue skin, conspiring
noblemen and women, a grim dark haired SubNazi and an old man in white
listening to a fool, and...an underwear thief?  He felt a little confusion
through his awe about the last one.  He would understand in time, he was
sure.

	And then his turn passed.  He stood and sipped tea and tried to
put it all together in his head, until each and every person had gazed
into Sch'neider's eyes.  And then Sch'neider dismissed them, though he
noticed a few were invited to linger, like the tall, regal redhead and his
blue-haired companion.

	He was not, and so he walked towards the door by which he had
entered, felt the world twist around him, and he walked into his quarters,
where he quickly put away the Murandian merchant's garb which he had worn
to the party.  Stripping almost naked, he redressed himself, and put on a
white cloak in the place of his red one, and picked up his staff.

	There was much work to be done in the Citadel of the Light.



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