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I just want the Empress off my back. Let's go further—make her and her court like me.

Is the False Icon so mighty it can reach across time to influence the present?

What is the present?

Are these your questions, or queries emanating from the monolith before you? You cannot tell, but you feel that the False Icon has acceded to your request. Byzantium will love you, it promises, though it does not tell you what that might mean.

"Crowchar? Crowchar!"

Someone shakes your shoulder. You awaken and look up at a blank, cloudy night sky.

"You appeared discomfited. Are you running a fever? Let me check."

Vecla's rudimentary hand feels cool against your forehead.

"Just bad dreams, then?"

Then you realize she's not speaking Koiné or Nahuatl, but the River Tongue. You understand it perfectly now. For a moment your hand burns. Vecla turns it over and frowns as if she might see something there, but you realize she's only checking your pulse.

"You keep having these bad dreams, Crowchar," she says. "Try to get some more sleep. We're close to one of the tribes that's said to have this cog of yours."

You try to respond, but you're already drifting back to sleep. You understand now, even as consciousness fades…Stralchus has the power to bring about his missionary fantasies in this savage place, to carve out a new colony-empire for the Icons and for Byzantium. But his zealous vision has no room for Dr. Sabbatine or for you.

But what if Stralchus alone has the power to stop the False Icon?

Your quest for the cog has taken on a spiritual dimension as well as a pragmatic one; should the mystic's as-yet-unbuilt fortress grow too powerful, his agents will find and destroy you as an agent of the False Icon. But without Stralchus to work against the False Icon from a position of strength, your obligations may reduce you to a state of pathetic slavery to it. Now you must walk a deadly tightrope with a fatal drop to either side.

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