Can't Look Back (War for Dominance Book 1) by Chris Kennedy Page B

have to have the right shape for the shape of your eye. Everyone’s eyes are different, and even one person’s two eyes may be different. My eyes have different prescriptions.”
    “Hmm...interesting,” said the gnome, a faraway look coming to its eyes as it contemplated John’s answers. “Vishdink doesn’t know what a prescription is, but Vishdink guesses that means the shape of the glass within the metal frame. Is Vishdink right?”
    “Close enough,” said John.
    The gnome muttered, “Hmm...” again and turned to walk off. Ghorza coughed. “Before you go build a pair of your own,” she said, “we need some help.”
    “Yes, yes, of course you need help. Why else would you come to see Vishdink?” it asked. “You never come by to say ‘hi;’ you only come when you need something.” It stopped at one of the smaller side tables and started writing on a scrap of parchment there. “One second.”
    “Ok,” it said a few seconds later, “what is it you need?”
    “The Magistra said to come and ask you for the Necklace of Tongues,” Ghorza replied. “We are going on a quest to find a thief, and John does not speak any of our languages.”
    “It doesn’t speak our languages?” asked Vishdink. “Where is it from? One of the moons in the night sky?”
    “No,” answered Ghorza, “he is from another world. We don’t know where. Without the necklace, gherfu ksfrug prutlug mfrkond.” The two of them continued speaking, but Ghorza’s translation spell had worn off, and John was no longer able to understand them.
    Lost to the conversation, John walked over to the smaller table where the gnome had stopped. There was a perfect drawing of his glasses on the scrap of parchment, as well as a representation of light being refracted through them to a single point. John was impressed.
    He looked up as a loud crash reverberated through the room. Vishdink was standing in the remains of one of the sets of shelves, rooting through a basket that appeared to have been toward the top of it. He pulled something out and brought it over to John. While he had been impressed with the gnome’s drawing skills, he was less than impressed with the gnome’s necklace. It looked like something that a five-year-old might have worn. It wasn’t gold but some brownish metal, and it was exceedingly tarnished. The necklace had little charms with crude sketches of various creatures on them. Overall, it didn’t look like a magical device or anything that would be very helpful to him.
    “What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked the gnome.
    The gnome looked puzzled and turned to say something to Ghorza. She replied, and the gnome turned back to John. It motioned for John to put on the necklace.
    John put the necklace on. “Now what?” he asked.
    “Now what?” repeated the gnome. “Now you take the powerful artifact that will translate people’s talkings, and you leave Vishdink in peace so that Vishdink can figure out this thing called ‘glasses.’ Bye bye.” Vishdink took the parchment off the table and went back to the large table. The gnome brushed off the blueprint that it had been working on, and the blueprint fell onto several others that were already piled up next to the table. Vishdink picked up a blank blueprint and spread it out on the table, prior to climbing up and sitting down in the middle of it. The gnome started drawing, humming happily to itself.
    “We might as well leave,” said Ghorza. “Now that he has a new project, we won’t be able to interrupt his thoughts again for some time.”
     
     

Chapter 12
     
     
    He would never live down the Spectre case, Dantes realized, throwing a rock into the lava pool far below him. He found he did his best thinking while sitting on the edge of the volcano’s crater. Something about having his legs dangling over the edge was liberating. Maybe he would just slide in…one day…ending his need to think for all time. His father might have survived a fall into the