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sustained only by thoughts of the Dark Lords and passage beyond the lands over which they rule, for what need is there for a caste of chimney sweeps when there are no chimneys left to sweep? Castes such as those are also parasitic to society, though I’m certain that the people who are members of them do not wish to be.
    “Let me say here, Master HarkosNor, that we of the BrathelLanza—the Brotherhood of Life—are not anarchists or wild-eyed radicals out to destroy the caste system entirely. Not at all. We merely wish to purify it, to restore it to the state of cleanliness that made NakrehVatee the great nation it once was not so many years ago.”
    KaphNo looked up briefly, a crooked, unpleasant smile on his face as if he had just bitten into a lemon and didn’t want to admit how sour it was.
    “Our goal,” AkweNema said, “is to return a better life to the castes, to the people, of our nation.”
    As he talked further of the evils he saw in the present society of NakrehVatee, as he further enumerated the wrongs that must be put right and how the BrathelLanza would go about doing it, his words came more quickly, more harshly, and there came into his eyes a gleam I didn’t Uke, a glow perhaps of fanaticism, or of madness.
    And when I glanced at the other faces, I saw reflected in their eyes that gleam I’d seen in AkweNema’s.
    I’d gotten myself mixed up with a bunch of fanatical revolutionaries, by God!
    But the Shadowy Man had said . . .
    It may have been thirty minutes later when AkweNema finally came to find a specific direction in his harangue.
    “So we have banded together in the BrathelLanza,” he said, “the Brotherhood of Life that will set things right in NakrehVatee, Lord DessaTyso and Professor KaphNo and myself, Ladies OrDjina and EnDera, Drs. ThefeRa and SkorTho, psychologist GrelLo, and the many others whom you will meet in the coming days, if you agree to join us in our sacred cause.
    “We have formed cadres all over the nation, and the people who believe as we do, who believe that the time has come to cleanse the nation, have come to us, have joined us. We are training them and arming them so that when the day comes we can rise as one force, solidified in our resolve and our commitment, and put down those in positions of ill-gained power.”
    He paused, licked his dry lips. I wondered how much of his speech had been memorized and how much of it had come to him as he spoke.
    “We have already formed the nucleus of the new government,” AkweNema continued, his voice calmer now. “Lord DessaTyso will be our chief of state, for such has been his training from birth and such is the right his lordship has inherited from his magnificent ancestors, the founders of our state.” Lord DessaTyso smiled broadly and basked in OrDjina’s obvious admiration. “With humility, KaphNo and I will do our best to serve as his ministers Sinister and Dexter. The cabinet largely has been appointed and will join us here when the time comes. Ibe people will supply the new parliament when the castes have been purged.”
    “And when will all this take place?” I asked when he paused again.
    “We will rise a year from now, perhaps,” AkweNema said. “I hope no longer in time than that. You, Master HarkosNor, can be a factor in helping us determine the date.”
    “Okay,” I said. “So you’ve got a place somewhere for me in all this. But where it is I can’t imagine.”
    “We need a fighting man to lead our troops,” AkweNema said, “and we need the nucleus of a fighting force that we hope to make superior to anything the government presently has in the field.”
    “And I can do that?” I asked incredulously.
    “We believe you can,” he replied. “We have studied you from the day you first approached our agent RyoNa,” he admitted. “For example, the girls you have slept with—they are all our people, and they have studied you well.”
    “Oh?” I said.
    He nodded. “We have also checked your