Into the Thinking Kingdoms by Alan Dean Foster Read Free Book Online Page A

which time the sun surrendered the day to the moon, and the noise of the waterfront, though never passing away completely, was much reduced from that of the busy day.
    “I wonder if it is after midnight.” Ehomba looked up from the book of many pictures he was perusing. “It feels so.”
    “There’s a clock on that shelf over there.” Simna pointed. “Can’t you see by its face that it’s after midnight?”
    “A clock?” Closing the book, Ehomba rose to have a look at the strange device. “So that is what this is. I wondered.”
    Simna gaped at him. “You mean you’ve never seen a clock before?”
    “No, never.” Standing before the shelf, Ehomba gazed in fascination at the softly ticking mechanism. “What is a ‘clock’?”
    “A device for the telling of time.” The swordsman studied his friend in disbelief. “It’s a peculiar sort of sorcerer you are, that doesn’t know the functioning of a clock. How do you tell time?”
    “By the sun and the stars.” The herdsman was leaning toward the shelf, his nose nearly touching the carved wooden hands that told the hour and the minute. “This is a wonderful thing.”
    “Hoy, sure.” A disappointed Simna found himself wondering if, perhaps, just perhaps, in spite of all they had seen and survived, Etjole Ehomba was in truth little more than what he claimed to be: a humble herder of food animals.
    There was a noise at the door and both men turned to regard it expectantly. “Moleshohn!” Simna blurted. “About time. We were beginning to get a trifle concerned about—”
    The door burst inward, thrown aside by a brace of Khorog. They were a large, beefy folk, with warty, unkind faces, who were much in demand in the municipalities and kingdoms of the Aboqua’s northern shore as mercenaries and bodyguards. They could also, it was abundantly and immediately evident, be employed for less noble purposes. Clad in light chain armor with heavy solid shoulder- and breastplates, they wielded weapons of little refinement, weighty war axes and ponderous maces being the manglers of choice.
    Simna had his sword out and had leaped atop the table in a trice. “No wonder Moleshohn the Deceiver wasn’t afraid of bin Grue! He’s sold us out!” As he flailed madly with his sword, using his superior position to slow the first rush of assailants and keep them momentarily at bay, he shouted frantically. “Do something, bruther! Slaughter them where they stand! They’ll be too many through that door and all over us in a moment!”
    In the surprise and confusion of the initial assault, Ehomba reached behind his back to grab for the sword of sky metal. Instead, his hand wrapped around his long spear. With no time in which to adjust for the mistake and with grunting, murderous Khorog swarming through the open door, he was forced to thrust with the weapon at hand instead of the one of choice. This despite knowing that the consequences could be as deadly for the spear holder as for those on the receiving end of its inherent inimical qualities.
    He knew that the cramped chamber was too small to contain the spirit of the spearpoint, but he had no time in which to consider another action. The grunting, homicidal Khorog were right on top of them. What burst forth from the tooth that tipped the end of his spear expanded not simply to dominate the room, but to fill it.
    “Out the back way, quickly!” He could only shout and hope that the swordsman could respond rapidly enough as the dead spirit of the tyrannosaur ballooned to occupy the entire room. The massive, switching tail barely missed him as he grabbed for his backpack and dove through the rear portal.
    Those Khorog who were not crushed instantly beneath the weight of the reconstituted carnivore suffocated themselves as they tried to squeeze back through the narrow front door. More were slain, devoured by the rampaging demon as, seeking space to move about and breathe, it burst through the storefront and the outer wall of