“Well, for God’s sake!” O’Keefe’s appalled bewilderment was almost ludicrous. “If he knows all that, and you knew all that, why didn’t you let me click him when I had the chance?”

“Larree,” the green dwarf was oddly humble. “It seemed good to me, too⁠—at first. And then I heard a command, heard it clearly, to stop you⁠—that Lugur die not now, lest a greater vengeance fail!”

“Command? From whom?” The Irishman’s voice distilled out of the blackness the very essence of bewilderment.

“I thought,” Rador was whispering⁠—“I thought it came from the Silent Ones!”

“Superstition!” groaned O’Keefe in utter exasperation. “Always superstition! What can you do against it!