Chapter 11

Thus follow the words given to the congregation at Namitan:

"Greetings, good people of Hai Menadin! I am Anna Petrova, Ambassador from the Stars, Herald from the Heavens! I came into your world on the wings of the Great Fireball from the Sky! I am the Lady Justice, the Keeper of Peace and the Bringer of Death! I am the Slayer of Slavers and the Freer of Slaves! All who stand before me, take heart, for all who stand against me shall fall! Good people, hear my words!

"I come before you today in the name of peace, but it is war which I will bring. For the past twenty-six years, you have enjoyed peace and prosperity. You have lived your lives in happiness and safety under an umbrella of protection provided to you all those years ago by one man. You know of whom I speak; you know his name, though many of you have forgotten your debt.

"You remember that the lord Iosoan of the Hai Lei brought peace to your land twenty-six years ago. You think of him as a kind and gentle ruler, fair and just and true. He is all those things, yes. But also terrible, powerful and cunning. In the ease and comfort of your lives, you forget what came before. You forget that two years before Iosoan's reign of peace began, he rose up amid the clash of armies. He rose up to become the most terrible, most powerful and most cunning of all the rulers, and scattered the others in order to bring you your peace.

"And now, with storms past out of mind, a new storm is brewing on the horizon, and your great domes will not hold the tide.

The storm is coming to sweep you away, and now is the time for you to stand fast and resist. Now! Not later, once the storm has come, but now, before it arrives. I call on you today to be as the giver of your peace was then: be terrible, powerful and cunning, or the tide will take you.

"The storm comes now unlooked-for - that is why you have not seen it - and it comes in haste - which is why we must haste as well. It has been brewing for over a year, possibly for the last twenty-six years, and is gathering strength even as I speak.

It is coming! It is almost upon you now! Doubt not my words, for I have seen its billows with my own eyes and heard its rumblings with my own ears. The storm comes, and I am the runner that warns you; I am the wall that shields you.

"And ask you now what is the storm? You ask, and I will answer. The storm is a mighty force of destruction and conquest, with the tyrant-lord Darrak of Hai Krun as its head, his legions as the winds and his pirate allies as the rain. It is a plan conceived in secret and bred in hiding, held by the darkest of minds and kept with the darkest of intensions.

"The host had already issued forth, and is even now marching on peaceful lands. I tell you this with a true heart: the army of aggression will roll over those who stand in its way and claim those that remain as spoils. Darrak holds no regard for peace or safety, for innocence or ignorance, for passiveness or fairness. He thinks only of power: the power he will gain for himself and the power he will crush to attain it.

"Darrak makes no distinction between those who stand up and those who stand aside. Should he prevail, all that he conquers will be put beneath his cloak, all that he gains will be lost. Should he be allowed to run his course, a light of peace and truth in the world will be snuffed, covered by a shroud of darkness.

"The lord of the Hai Krun does not obey the rules of war. He grows his army in secret, and he marches in secret. He does not state a grievance or make claim to land or title; he attacks unprovoked, and purposefully so. He approaches while the back is turned and prepares his dagger to kill - and the dagger he wields in none other than the Slavers of Ninev!