So preoccupied was he that he didn't even hear Narla approaching till her voice rang out behind him, raw with sudden shock: "Ourobos—!"
Zenaor spun by instinct.
His daughter's lovely face showed stiff with horror. "Father...." She choked; retched.
Cold-eyed he waited till the spasm had passed before he spoke: "So ... you find my secret shocking?"
"Shocking—?" The girl's eyes held disbelief. Then: "Father, not even Vydys would do such! To bring those horrors here from Xumar—" She shuddered. "You would not! You dare not—"
"I dare not?" Zenaor laughed harshly; gestured to the cubicle, and the dying serfman engulfed in slime. "I have already done it!"
"Then—you would destroy our world—the Baemae—?" The girl's voice was queer, choked.
"Are there only Baemae, then, on Lysor?" Anger carved Zenaor's jaw-line deeper, sharper. "I am of the Kukzubas, Narla; the barons! My loyalty is to them, for from them I draw my power."
"Your power!" Narla came erect at the word. "There is the answer, father! Your loyalty is not to the barons or to Lysor, but to power alone. You live for it. You bow before no other god."
"And so?" Zenaor stood inflexible as duroid.