The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

oneness and the Noble household in his head.  With a Noble, it’s always at the household level.”
    “You two aren’t Crow shamans, are you?” Sylvie said.
    Gilgamesh smiled.  “Remind me to tell you about a recent long trip I took with Duke Hoskins, Sylvie.  Sky and I both know the basics and can do them, and this is real basic stuff, compared to manipulating the Great Enabler.”
    “All right, I’m willing to give it a try,” Sylvie said.  “It’s damned clear we need to do something .”
    Sky and Gilgamesh stood and faced each other, about a yard apart.  “Go give each other a hug, and proclaim the households as one,” Gilgamesh said.
    Connie and Sylvie grimaced, and they both moved slowly, but they hugged.  One of the dryers celebrated the occasion by completing its cycle, making the laundry room quieter by a minute amount.
    The juice moved.
     
    “So, are you going to tell us what’s going on, or do we need to force it out of you?” Lori said.  She was almost a foot shorter than Gail, a gymnast pixie with black hair and brown eyes.  She and Gail faced the two Crows across the same meeting room table Gilgamesh and Sky used earlier to hatch their plots.  With two hostile Focuses present, the tiny room seemed even smaller.  Gilgamesh had the urge to go hide somewhere, as Lori’s glare was hot enough to boil water, but he forced the panic down.  This was necessary.  The household Affinity bond remained feeble and unfinished.  The two Focuses needed to join, as well.
    “We’re trying to bring the households together,” Sky said.  “You two need to tag each other.”
    “You can’t be serious,” Lori said.  Both he and Sky nodded.  “Okay, why?”
    “It’s the next step.  We’ve already gotten the households to tag each other,” Sky said.  He pushed a piece of paper across the table to Lori and Gail, outlining all the steps they had gone through so far.
    Gail nodded, her attitude softening as she read.  “Neat!” she said.  “I was hoping someone would come up with something to deal with the problem.  I wasn’t looking forward to living at Littleside every Friday night.  How’s it working so far?”
    “So far so good,” Sky said.  “Unfortunately, it’s incomplete and inadequate.”
    Lori closed her eyes, and thought.  “You’re missing a big step in your plan,” she said.  “The households need to be able to tag their Focuses, as well.”
    “That sounds quite intriguing, especially coming from a Focus.  There’s only one big problem, outside of the psychological, emotional and political – how, dearest Lori, would you propose that happen?  Technically speaking and all that, eh?”
    “I don’t know.  The Inferno household superorganism can’t do anything like that.  Yet.  All I know is that what you have here isn’t the final solution.  I’m willing to give this partial cure a go, though.”
    Gilgamesh understood.  No household had ever tagged their Focus before, and Transform Sickness was always cruel to the pioneers.  The risks they had already taken terrified him.  Lori was right, though.  Having a household tag their own Focus was a much bigger step, and necessary.  Eventually.  Everything else was just a twist on what the Noble baronies already did.  “How much can a household superorganism do?” he asked.  Typical Lori.  Sitting in front of today’s solution, she wanted to think and talk about tomorrow’s problems.
    “Theoretically, anything that any of the member Transforms inside the household can do.  Practically, well, although we’ve been working on this problem for years, the answer is ‘not much’.  Communication, mostly.  Triggering juice patterns that a Focus sets up specifically to be used that way.  We’re missing something big, Gilgamesh.  We’ve been able to come up with only a few practical uses, enough so that we occasionally wonder if we’ve flubbed our basic theory behind the superorganisms.”
    “How