“So what can I do... about it? You don't want me to...?” Organs. But not just his.

“No, no,” shook his head, “Anything direct will make everything worse. The child will be born. And it will grow. And it will grow fast. No, no, the 9 scrolls of prophecy were stolen, by the Lucine Cast of Thrice-st; it's a fake quest; they're in tunnel-corridors, a cave complex, you'll need a mystical key as well. It's a completely fake quest that the Queen needs - the Lucine Cast of Thrice-st are working for/with her, obviously, I assume and presume, it's a weird power-play to confirm her awesome powers of prophecy and premonition, to control the minds; fidelity, etc., the attention really, of the minds of her populace. It's entirely fictional, and functional, and concocted by her, pretty obviously, but it's your in. It's your way into it. It's your start.”

He stopped and started again.

“Every quest of this scale, of this importance; with these threads, the so many threads that combined-out will take us through this thing and end in the deaths of nations? This will end in the deaths of nations - you may not agree. But any quest like this, is a universe - and you're already not craving anything else, are you, in fact, Art?No, you're not craving anything at all. - But this.”

“- So that's where I'm going?”

“It hardly matters if it's a forest, a desert, a sea; you'll pass through a wilderness of lies; but that just might be exactly what you were built to traverse... to handle -”

“It's all on the surface, like this, it's so; always so -”

“It's obvious. The Queen of Waat. - Go listen to the lies she'll tell you and then maybe you'll think something entirely else. Maybe you'll – but no, believing her, as we've seen, is an anatomical impossibility, in your case. But no one really reads your colours – maybe they can't even see them. But when he's king - when that child grows to his full height – three years – sooner? – you'll be blind with the lies and everything, will in fact be dead.”

“You're really talking in pretty portentous end of chapter type sentences -”

“I am trying to hasten this.”

Art could detect however not even a shade of untruth... not even a whisper, in fact, of exaggeration.

Without a backwards word the Cyclops got up and left.

And Art made his preparations for his first encounter with a new species of lie. Those brought forth literally from the unconventional sexual organs of the combination Cyclops – of which entity, the title: – Slua-Sryh -

the Queen of Waat.