There is a curse. They say: May You Live in Interesting Times This is where the gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world. And Fate always wins. Fate always wins. Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been using two queens all along. Fate wins. At least, so it is claimed. Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate.[1] Gods can take any form, but the one aspect of themselves they cannot change is their eyes, which show their nature. The eyes of Fate are hardly eyes at all - just dark holes into an infinity speckled with what may be stars or, there again, may be other things. He blinked them, smiled at his fellow players in the smug way winners do just before they become winners, and said: 'I accuse the High Priest of the Green Robe in the library with the double-handed axe.' And he won. He beamed at them. 'No-one likesh a poor winner,' grumbled Offler the I Crocodile God, through his fangs. 'It seems that I am favouring myself today,' said Fate. 'Anyone fancy something else?' The gods shrugged. 'Mad Kings?' said Fate pleasantly. 'Star-Crossed Lovers?' 'I think we've lost the rules for that one,' said Blind Io, chief of the gods.