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Lightsong shook his head, trying to dispel the phanto too, he now rehthtmares were seen as prophetic o’s chair, watching the God King’s palace

"Oh, sit down and stop loo the buzzards jealous"

Llarimar raised an eyebrow "And which buzzards would that be, Your Grace?"

"The ones who keep pushing for us to go to war," Lightsong said waving a hand

The priest sat down on one of the patio’s wooden recliners and relaxed as he sat, re the bulky miter from his head Underneath, Llarimar’s dark hair was plastered to his head with sweat He ran his hand through it During the first few years, Llarimar had remained stiff and for had worn hiod In his opinion, if he could lounge on the job, then so could his priests

"I don’t know, Your Grace," Llari his chin "I don’t like this"

"The queen’s arrival?" Lightsong asked

Llarimar nodded "We haven’t had a queen in the court for some thirty years I don’t kno the factions will deal with her"

Lightsong rubbed his forehead "Politics, Llaris"

Llarimar eyed him "Your Grace, you are--by default--a politician"

"Don’t remind me, please I should very well like to extract myself from the situation Do you think, perhaps, I could bribe one of the other gods to take control of my Lifeless Commands?"

"I doubt that would be wise," Llarimar said

"It’s all part of my master plan to insure that I become totally and redundantly useless to this city by the tiain"

Llarimar cocked his head "Redundantly useless?"

"Of course Regular uselessness wouldn’t be enough--I arapes fro to dis Just dreams

Even so, he decided he would tell Llari Perhaps Llarimar could use the dreams to help push for peace with Idris If old Dedelin hadn’t sent his firstborn daughter, it would mean more debates in the court More talk of war This princess’s arrival should have settled it, but knew that the war hawks aods would not let the issue die

"Still," Llari to hin, surely An outright refusal would have meant war for certain"

"And whoever Certain is, I doubt we should have a war for hirape "War is, in my divine opinion, even worse than politics"

"Some say the two are the same, Your Grace"

"Nonsense War is far worse At least where politics is going on, there are usually nice hors d’oeuvres"

As usual, Llari would have been offended if he hadn’t known there were three separate lesser priests standing at the back of the patio, recording his words, searching for wisdo within them

"What will the Idrian rebels do now, do you think?" Llari said, leaning back, closing his eyes and feeling the sun on his face "The Idrians don’t consider the up in their hills, waiting for the day when they can return in triumph to Hallandren This isn’t their hododom to control the area’s best inal royal line of the original Hallandren dynasty They don’t need us, my friend"

"And the talk of Idrian dissidents in the city, ones rousing the people against the Court of Gods?"

"Ru and the underprivileged masses storm my palace and burn ht all along You’ll get the last laugh Orwell, the last scream, since you’ll probably be tied up besideopened his eyes to find the priest regarding him with a conte for his levity Llari his headdress back on He was the priest; Lightsong was the god There would be no questioning of ave an order, they would all do exactly as he said

Sometimes, that terrified him

But not this day He was, instead, annoyed The queen’s arrival had so about politics--and the day had been going so well until then

"More wine," Lightsong said, raising his cup

"You can’t get drunk, Your Grace," Llarimar noted "Your body is i said as a lesser servant filled his cup "But trust "