And the
sky is cracking and falling, as you have seen for yourself. The effects
are already being felt. Gamma radiation is flooding through the gaps;
the quick-breeding viruses are mutating through half the world, faster
than the Medical Art can control them, so that millions of us are
sneezing and choking--and dying, too, for lack of antibiotics and proper
care. Air travel is a perilous thing; just today, a stratosphere roc
crashed head-on into a fragment of the sky and was killed with all its
passengers. Worst of all, the Science of Magic suffers. Because the
stars are fixed on the dome of the sky. With the crumbling of that dome,
the course of the stars has been corrupted. It's pitiful magic that can
be worked without regard to the conjunctions of the planets; but it is
all the magic that is left to us. When Mars trines Neptune, the Medical
Art is weak; even while we were conjuring you, the trine occurred. It
almost cost your life. And it should not have occurred for another seven
days."
There was silence, while Ser Perth let Dave consider it. But it was too
much to accept at once, and Dave's mind was a treadmill. He'd agreed to
admit anything, but some of this was such complete nonsense that his
mind rejected it automatically. Yet he was sure Ser Perth was serious;
there was no humor on the face of the prissy thin-mustached man before
him.
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