"You seek me?" a harsh voice said.
Kesley snapped to attention and saw the hoarse-voiced Jeremiah of the streets approaching him, escorted by the dewlapped one. Kesley nodded; this was the man. In such profusion of mutation, there would hardly be two so marked.
"Do you remember who I am?" Kesley asked.
The mutant chuckled. "Could I forget? You're the young killer from the southlands, up here to do away with—but hush! I must not give it away!"
Kesley gripped the mutant by the baggy folds of flesh that hung loosely on one spidery arm. "How do you know anything of who I am?"
The mutant shrugged. "How could I keep from knowing?" His voice was mild and apologetic now, with little of its earlier raucous quality. "I can no more keep from knowing, than you—than you can keep from needing food, or seeing when your eyes are open. I ... know."
"How much do you know?"
"Why you are here, and where you are from ... and where you will go, and what you will become." Lomark Dawnspear's voice had modulated into a dull, almost ritualistic drone. "I see these things, and I do not speak. I speak, but you do not see. Blind, I know you. Eyes open, you march into treachery."
Kesley released the mutant and stepped back. He was shaking with inward horror; his empty stomach seemed to be squirming. "What are you talking about?"
The mutant smiled feebly. "Counter-question: who is your father, handsome blond man?"