Page 2989

Between that and all the talk about patience being "not merely a virtue but a liberating necessity," about "Young Hector" being a "budding Gartanas," and about "time not being time," Abbas didn't know where his own mind was, right now. Perhaps the smartest thing to do would be to lay down on that ancient bed over there and have Worwal knock him out.

The thought was certainly tempting. Maybe the world would make sense again after he woke up.

Wishful thinking, most likely.

No, he wanted to hear what Hector had to say after he returned from his "journey" through the Forge. That was more important than his fatigue.

Ugh. He had so many questions, but they were all muddled together in his mind. If nothing else, he would have to begin studying--

Hmm?

What was that?

A light in the Forge. Within the glass orb, it was faint but there.

And it was sustaining itself, too. Not like before, when it had only flickered and sputtered.

Abbas stood up slowly, eyes unblinking as he took in the scene before him.

The Forge had reactivated.

-+-+-+-+-

Raul Blackburn sure hoped this was going to work.

It probably would, he kept telling himself. He just had to keep his head. To stay alert. With Invisibility as his disposal, the chance of failure here was virtually zero.

In theory.

The VMP couldn't possibly have any Invisibility-penetrating detection technology on their hands yet, right? This power was still too new. Abolish might have developed their own countermeasures for it already, but from all the intel he'd been gathering over the last several days, the VMP and Abolish were not directly working together in that way.

Phew.

If someone had told him a day ago that he would be single-handedly breaking into a heavily fortified compound belonging to the Vantalay Military Police, he would have told them they were insane.

This had not been part of the plan, to say the very least of things.