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their usefulness in the world has not expired with their lives. I became one of these latter some years ago." I nodded. "Okay, I think I'm starting to get it."
    "Yes? But here is where it starts becoming complicated."
    I rolled my eyes.
    "Stop it," she said. "That expression is not your most endearing. Listen and try to understand." I sighed. "All right."
    She nodded. "I have told you about the gods and the Jenoine, but there are other factors, and chief of these are the Serioli. You have never met one, but - You have? I didn't know or have forgotten. But I am sure you know little about them. I know little about them, though I have had more to do with them than any other human being in the world.
    "The Serioli are native to the world, which neither your people nor mine are. In some measure, perhaps they resent us both, though most of them recognize that we are not responsible for what has been done to us. But above all, they resent the gods, because the gods, in a very real way, rule the world. The Serioli did not evolve as a people to be ruled - who would so evolve?
    "It was the gods who sent the dreams that inspired Kieron the Conqueror to gather the tribes and move east, and the visions that led Zerika to create the Orb; thus it was the gods who created the Empire that drove the Serioli from their homes, that destroyed much of their culture, killed many of them in battles. They - and while it is hard to speak of a whole people as if they had a single voice, here I think I am not too wrong - they hate the gods. This does not always make them friends of the Jenoine, but it does make them the enemies of the gods. Do you see?"
    "I think so," I said slowly.
    "And some of the Serioli believe that an enemy of their enemy must be their friend." I nodded.
    "The gods," she continued, "are forever seeking ways to seal our world, so the Jenoine cannot reach us. And factions among the Serioli keep searching for ways to allow the Jenoine access. And into this conflict come those Serioli who, years ago, crafted those half-living, half-inanimate artifacts called the Great Weapons, each of which is, in one way or another, obviously or not, directed against the gods."
    I blinked. "The Great Weapons are - but that doesn't make any sense. Why—? Okay, never mind. Keep going."
    "I never said it would be simple."
    "Yeah."
    "Where was I? Ah, yes: the Great Weapons. Jenoine are very hard to kill, Vlad. We know of no poison that works on them, their internal organs are duplicated; they have no spine to sever, and they have an almost perfect natural immunity to the disruptive effects of amorphia. They regenerate when injured, and I have seen them, on more than one occasion, resist even powerful Morganti weapons, as if their very souls are hidden away from their bodies. But this cannot be, because the Great Weapons can kill Jenoine. The Great Weapons are the only reliable way to kill Jenoine - if you can survive long enough to find a way to strike, and if you don't miss and if they fail to defend against it.
    "Do you see the contradiction, Vlad? Do you see the irony?"
    "Yeah, I'm always good with irony."
    "I know. You always have been, even in the days before the Empire I remember that about you."
    "I... okay."
    "Do you see it?"
    I nodded. "The Great Weapons were created to destroy the gods, but now they're being used to defend the gods. Cute."
    "Yes. We who carry the Great Weapons are the appointed of the gods - even those of us who, like Zungaron—"
    "Who?"
    "Never mind. Even those of us who have one only by accident and have not the least clue what it is for, or what to do with it. If we defy the gods, by intention or accident, we are likely to find life difficult. And yet, we are the only humans whom the gods have reason to fear, and to hate."
    I blinked. "I've never envied you, Sethra. Now I envy you even less." She smiled. "The result," she said, "is that we must look out for each other - the reasons for that should be obvious." I