Alan Harnum wrote"

    The terrain was dull and monochromatic; right now, she
walked through a field of dark grey, almost black, grass.  To
both sides, mountain ranges as white as ice loomed like fierce
teeth.  High upon their slopes, she could see towers built of
steel, or hewn out of the mountainside.

Again, nice imagery.

    "The Phantom Tribe..." she murmured.  Her scans, taken in
less than a second, indicated the armour was compositionally
identical to steel.  Their weapons were unknown; the metal of the
bows and spears they held was like nothing she had ever seen,

Although the suction cups on the ends of the arrows made her downgrade
their damage capability assessment.

and

the gems studding them gave off humming fields of considerable
power to her enhanced vision.

Oh, this should be fun.

    It didn't matter.  There were exactly thirty-eight of them,
none further from her than twenty-three feet.  A short-range
plasma burst would kill them all.

    One of them shouted something at her, in a language she did
not understand.  It bore no etymological resemblance to any of
the El-Hazard languages she was programmed with.  The woman
sounded wary,

You didn't mention it was a woman before this point; You might want to say
it at the beginning of the paragraph.

but not threatening.

    Makoto had set her free from the compunction to kill at the
command of others.

Now she simply killed for her own amusement.

* * *

    "You must feel lucky that I requested you ride in my
personal skimmer," Fatora said from where she sat across from
him.

Makoto: If you mean lucky in the sense that I have to put up with a stuck
up bitch like yourself, then the answer is yes, I am quite lucky.

A silent serving-maid refilled her wine glass, and she
slugged it down.  "I'm very interested to hear all about the
adventures you had while impersonating me."

Makoto: I made people think you were a pleasant person.

Fatora: Shit; Now I have to act twice as bad to restore my rep.

    Princess Fatora seemed to have a most forceful personality.

I didn't notice.

Even if he wasn't entirely charmed by her, he had to admire
someone who could undergo such things as she had, and recover so
quickly.

I will give her that; she did seem pretty unaffected by her ordeal

    Fatora, he soon discovered, laughed extremely easily, and
the sound of her laughter wasn't entirely pleasant to the ears.
He didn't really mind this as much as he'd thought he would, but
he still envied Nanami and the others, whatever they were doing
on their own skimmer.

Probably mooning over him.

    Fujisawa nodded.  Miz put down the wine jug with a frown.

Heh, so much for getting him drunk and taking advantage of him.

    "How interesting," Jinnai said, not interested at all.
"When El-Hazard is ours, we will engage in a program of
restoration."

    "How can you restore natural wonders?" Deva asked, sounding
confused.

    Jinnai shrugged.  "I'll invent some way."

Heh; and his delusions of grandure grow.

    "We'll leave when I say we will," Jinnai replied.  He looked
at his left wrist, and then remembered he wasn't wearing a watch,
and that there wasn't any specific time he was waiting for
anyway.

Hehehehe; could always get a wrist sundial or something, I suppose.

    "I may have spoken harshly to you earlier this morning," he
said stiffly.  "I wanted to apologize."  Frankly, it bothered him
to have to appeal to the programmed emotions of a machine, but
Deva had been moody since their conversation in the rain, and a
moody Bugrom Queen didn't seem like a good idea.

No; it doesn't

    "Katsuhiko, what are you looking at?"

    No words could escape his lips.  He stared at the angels;
already they were becoming translucent, and now transparent.
Then they were gone altogether.  Their light remained for a
moment longer than they did, and then it too vanished.

Oh, how nice; he's now seeing things, although I'd wager it's more than an
idle hallucination.

    He loved her, because Makoto did, and he had to love what
Makoto loved, for he loved Makoto, who had set him free.

    Mardruk slept, and dreamt of flight.

Interesting little side bit.

    Makoto smiled, a bit sadly.  "I suppose.  But they can't put
it back the way it was.  I read about the Senate Dome in the
books in the library; the engravers who did the designs are all
long-dead."

Time eventually claims all things, no matter how one tries to preserve
them.

    Behind them, Shayla was attempting to pry Alielle off.
"Damn it, don't cling to me like that!  Hey!  What are you
doing!"

doing?!"

    They walked down from the causeway that led from the sea
wall to the town itself.  As Nanami had predicted, Shayla and
Alielle followed, although Shayla had to endure Alielle clinging
to her arm the whole time.

Nanami shouldn't worry; it'll be her turn next.

    "Run and get Miz and Afura and Fujisawa-sensei as fast as
you can," Nanami said, not paying attention to either him or
Shayla.  "My brother just went down the middle of the river in a
boat full of Bugrom."

And no one else noticed?

* * *

    From where he sat atop the roof of the boat's cabin, Nahato
watched Balam roll past.  Down on the deck, Queen Deva and her
Bugrom stared anxiously at the city and the other boats, as if
expecting at any moment to be spotted.

Oh, so now we know where the visions are coming from; now it makes sense.

    Jinnai didn't seem worried at all.  He stood at the prow of
the boat, arms crossed, seeming to believe himself the lord of
all he surveyed.  For an entire day now, Nahato had been forced
to listen to the deranged imbecile ranting to Deva about being
chosen by God, and other insanity.

As opposed to listening to, 'The Lord of the Deeper Shadows'; not a god,
nononono

    Nahato nodded, almost overcome with emotion.  He had never
felt so loved, so whole, as he did now.  "Why did I ever doubt?"
he asked.

You're mind wasn't taken over by an alien intelligence; that might have
something to do with it.

    The parchment-skinned fingers stroked his brow, gentle as
the touch of a feather.  "Not all are chosen to feel his touch,"

Lemulla: Sometimes you just have to touch yourself instead.

    "Why?"

    "Because he is my son."

    Nahato froze.

    "He never told you?"

Would you admit to something like that?

    "No."

    "Not one for pillow talk, I suppose."

Heh.

    "Well, you're my angels," he said.  "You've got the flaming
weapons.  Go kill him, and we'll be done with it."

Hehehehe; good ole Jinnai.

    Jinnai cackled.  "Why?  We're shielded by the hand of God,
if you don't forget."

    Deva closed her eyes.  The antenna-like hairs sprouting from
the centre of her forehead twitched slightly.  "Yes," she said,
half-wearily.  "The hand of God."

One wonders if she might not be able to pierce the illusions if she tried;
she is a rather unusual design, after all and might have some unusual
capabilities

    He turned his eyes back to the angels and sighed gently.
"You're new at this, or something, aren't you?"

Heh; nice work as always, not as much to comment on this time around.

D.B. Sommer