“Cord?” Rysn whispered, trembling. “What is happening?” “I did not realize . . .” Cord whispered in Veden. “The Gods Who Sleep Not . . . they can appear as people.” “Do you know how to fight one?” “I told you, you cannot,” Cord said. “Lunu’anaki—he is trickster god—warned of them during my grandmother’s time when she was the watcher of the pool.” “We had not expected to find one of the Sighted on this trip,” Nikli said in Veden. “You have long guarded Cultivation’s Perpendicularity. It is regrettable that you joined this expedition. We do not kill your people lightly, Hualinam’lunanaki’akilu.”
