"Councillor Widia, what do you say?"
Murphy's voice echoed through the chamber inside the God's Scepter launch platform. Since he had addressed the question to an extremely battered grimoire, Prince Khufu had good reason to wonder whether the vampire lord was under so much pressure that he'd started hallucinating.
Did he really think this battered old book would answer him?
Just as Prince Khufu and his captain of the guard exchanged glances, debating whether they should fetch a physician to check the handsome vampire's head, the book in Murphy's hand shuddered. Amid a flickering stream of psionic light, an intermittent, weary old voice emerged from its pages:
"How would you... like me to proceed?"
"Holy shit! The book talked!"
The young Prince Khufu felt his scalp prickle.
As heir to the Sangha Empire, he had seen a great many things, including all sorts of wicked contraptions crafted by psionicists through evil means. But the Sangha Empire didn't encourage the use of psionics. They practiced the most traditional shamanic elemental magic instead, so Prince Khufu had always kept his distance from such sinister things.
Now, when the book in Murphy's hand spoke, he warily took a step back.
General Bhopal reacted even faster. With a swift motion, he drew his desert saber and stepped in front of his prince. Having fought in the Fourth Calamity, General Bhopal knew something about the dangerous things in this world. And that battered book in Murphy's hand looked strange no matter how he examined it.
Why did this thing look so much like the goatmen's most evil relic from the legends, the "Book of a Thousand Curses"?
Murphy didn't blame the Sanghans for their wariness. On the contrary, their quick reaction pleased him. When it came to a grimoire that could be called a "vessel