"Of course!" she replied, catching him entirely off his guard. "My people are all that remain of that ancient kingdom! And the evil one punishes us, Morag's descendants, to this very day!"

Belloc, Anest, and Lily were alone together for the first time since their journey to Lund began. The three of them were seated on a wooden bench in Baldric's garden, which like his house was surrounded by high stone walls. These were bedecked with tumbles and cascades of flowers growing out of clay pots that had been set on protruding stones set there for that very purpose.

"Where did the Demons originally come from?" Lily asked Belloc.

"Why don't you ask Anest?" the wizard replied, lighting his pipe. "As I've told you, he's the expert on the dark things of the east."

Anest chuckled. "That is, if being an expert means collecting old tales and hearsay."

"What old tales?" she asked.

"Well . . ." replied Anest, and thought a moment. "For example, there is a very old tale about the creation of the world we live in.

"As the story goes, the Creator was bored with his empty existence, so he sought to create a world to fill the empty void, as a way to entertain himself.

"The problem was, being the Creator meant that he was unlimited. He was all-seeing and all-knowing, and no matter what he did, he was bored because he knew ahead of time how every last detail was going to turn out.




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