“Alan, look at his face and hair,” Autumn whispered.

“I saw that too,” Chris Alan whispered back. Whoever he was, this curly-haired man wasn’t from the Prince’s ancestral ethnic group.

The man’s voice echoed through the city center. “Beware the visitors from the White Tribe, lest you anger the gods even more! For five years there has been no rain because our past king tried to turn us from them to have us worship the god of the White Tribe.” The people seemed to recognize the speaker (though Chris Alan did not), and many of them nodded in agreement (or out of fear). “The king died for his transgression – and if you, young Prince, give heed to these ministers of lies, you too will die. Yes, in two weeks’ time, you will die at midnight: not one minute sooner or later.”

“Who are *you* that you speak such things?” Chris Alan demanded.

“You have no right to speak to me, whoever you are, for I am Obey – *Shema* in your language. I am high priest to the gods, and there shall be drought until all of our people return to the old ways.”

“I think we have ourselves a suspect, Blondie,” Slate muttered in Ersatz, hoping this “Obey” wouldn’t understand it.

“Yes, and a powerful speaker, too,” said Chris Alan in the same interstellar pidgin. But powerful or not, Obey’s voice couldn’t draw upon Prophecy and Tongues Without Measure at Need or a Starbard’s vocal training. Chris Alan’s voice could.

“I am Chris Alan Starbright, Starbard Level Five – the Undying Singer!” he said in exquisite Brusian, in a tone that made the crowd murmur in awe and Obey actually step back a pace. “I am the Wielder of the White Hand, and we are all servants of the Lord of the Realms. He is the only Lord, and the Emperor He represents is the Most High God. They and Their Family together are the One True God.”

“What color are these gods of yours? White, I presume. Ha! We worship gods of our own skin color.” The crowd seemed to be leaning towards this priest more and more he spoke. “Gods such as our great King Mustafa, the High Father.”

Chris Alan smiled. Obey had made a blunder, for Chris Alan knew the history of this world. “This dead king you worship: was he not a devout follower of Callista Brandywine, who normally appears in the likeness and image of a White Tribeswoman?”

The crowd murmured again; there was no disputing that Mustafa had built countless shrines and dedicated countless young women to the Cult of Callista, the Chalice of the Maids.

Obey scowled at Chris Alan. “We will see who is a true prophet here. You cannot protect the Prince if he sides with you.”

“Think again, Obey!” Chris Alan took off his ceremonial headdress and handed it to Prince Brian reverently, exposing his blond hair to the bright sunlight. “I can protect the Prince and prove you to be the liar you are – *depend* on it.”

“Behold!” Obey shouted as he struck the small fountain that decorated the center. It sprang forth blood, and the crowd stepped back murmuring and wailing in fear.

“Alan, how did he do that?” Autumn asked.

“Raphael?”

“By no natural means I can scan, Chris Alan.”

“I thought so. Someone’s giving him help. No problem.” Chris Alan stepped forward, turned his left hand blue, and bent over to touch the ground. A ripple of blue radiance moved quickly across the courtyard under the feet of Obey and the crowd, changing the water back to its normal state. The crowd murmured again at the ease by which Chris Alan countered Obey’s move.

“*Let there be Light!*” Chris Alan shouted as he clapped his hands, and not just his hands but every part of his exposed skin shone with almost blinding white radiance; his hair gleamed like polished gold, and his clothes became white as snow. “*This* is what our God looks like, Obey, as seen through a glass darkly. Were the Lord here in my place, with His brightness fully revealed, He would consume you where you stand.” Chris Alan returned to normal as the Prince and the crowd looked on in stunned silence.

Slate’s eyes almost popped out of his head. [Is this something that Toa’s new training program taught Blondie to do? What a trick! Who knew that he could use Light in that way?]

[He said not to push these people too hard, and then he does this,] Autumn thought in wonder. [He must sense that the need’s really desperate. I don’t blame him; this Obey is a snake!]

Obey was livid now. “Prove me wrong then, Starbright! All you have to do is make sure two weeks from now that when the clock strikes midnight, the Prince lives *one more minute*.”

With that warning, Obey dropped a smoke bomb and vanished.