 
CEMETERY OF ORPHANS

by Yaroslav Kostyuk

Life is effort through time,

— MERAB MAMARDASHVILI

What will it be like to be sitting

Half an hour from now in this brougham?

With what eyes shall I look at these snowflakes

And black branches of trees?

How shall I follow again with my gaze

That conical curbstone in its cotton wool cap?

How recall on my way back my way there?

—VLADIMIR NABOKOV, The Gift
CHAPTER 1

Hittite Reservation

For most of the day the caravanners stopped frequently to ask the locals for directions to their destination. Gore eyed the many old Hittite women standing along the side of the highway — as far as Gore knew, amulets were the only source of a Hittite's income.

With each passing mile, Gore became more and more uncomfortable. He glanced over to Libya Minor who was twitching in her sleep. "Another disturbing dream," Gore thought as he looked upon his wife. As twilight fell, the highway dissolved into a parched river, as if every turn and every road marker pulled the car into another dimension. The road twisted through the hills and dark swirling cirrus clouds smudged the sky.

The map they were following from the Church of Rome was very old and this did not ease Gore's conscience as he was in an unfamiliar place. At last, Gore saw a dusty wooden sign that read 'Thunder Bird' leaning toward the forest. A line of poles ran along the right side of the road leading to the salmon farms beyond the trees. The sparse forest whispered and sighed among a sea of ferns as the sun shone through the branches as if night had never set upon the forest.

Just another mirage, Gore thought. Things are not always as they seem.

Just around a bend in the road a toll bar blocked the way. Gore slammed on the brakes jolting the car as it squealed to a stop.

Beyond the toll bar, Gore noticed an unpaved road leading to a nearby hut. In the shade of a veranda that wrapped around the hut, a group of men sat in their chairs. Gore noted that they each had some kind of injury.

At the hut's entrance stood a young boy, no more than 16. "Good evening!" Gore said. "We are caravanners. I'm Horace Pulvill and this is Libya Minor."

"Huh?" the boy blinked. "What?"

Gore sighed and showed his caravanner ID card.

"Two months ago, on behalf of Veritema Togkuos, a request was sent to the Church of Rome for a baptism. With whom may I discuss this matter?"

The boy stared at him with confusion.

"This way," the boy whispered. The boy slowly turned toward the forest that rose behind him. He spoke softly, "Not here."

Gore looked at the older occupants of the veranda. They turned their faces away, trying to civilly exclude themselves from the conversation.

The boy swept off his cap.

"Would you like to see a sister?" he asked.

Gore was surprised.

"Is there a sisterhood?"

"I'll walk you to the convent!"

Gore carefully considered the proposal.

"Very well. How far is it?"

The boy didn't answer. He quickly spun around and began to walk down the road.

"Come on!" he cried. "Follow me!"

Gore glanced over his left shoulder and saw two of the older men on the veranda sigh with relief.

"You must hurry!" the boy exclaimed.

Libya Minor's long thin forefinger tapped at her head.

"Yeah!" Gore agreed, pulling a ritual bag out of the car.

They walked briskly following the boy up a sloping hill and came upon a large lake. The surface was leaf-green and Gore minded his feet as to avoid the lightly lapping waves. A score of gangways ripped into its center. Gore marveled at the spider web of sand and rock as he passed a young group of Hittites joyfully singing as they pulled in large nets of rich pink salmon. The village was marked with hills and scattered mud huts. They picked up the pace as the boy led the caravanners to the top of the steep hill. As Gore crested the hill he gazed upon a sight that looked as if it was taken from a painting. There was a shed made of aging wood, and the garden tools on its wall rang in the small wind, echoing the cricket's carols in the thick weeds.

Libya turned and gazed past the lake as she spoke to Gore in a soft voice.

"Did you see how they were gazing at us?" Libya Minor asked. "As if we were lepers."

Gore nodded. He was still gazing curiously at the shed and the forest beyond.

"It does not look like place in which someone would hide the sisterhood," he muttered.

There was a scream; long and wild. The caravanners froze.

"Things are not always as they seem," Gore thought as he brought Libya closer to him.

They heard short, jerky barking from the inside of shed, followed by a meager whine.

Gore approached the gate, taking the cross and holding it close to his chest. The rotten straw was crunching underfoot. In the dark womb of the shed, a shadow stirred like a curtain in the wind. Gore squinted in the dark trying to focus on the shadow in the room. A light voice echoed:

"Well, who is that with you?"

Gore, had been prepared for the worst, when this gentle voice caused him, to startle and hide his cross.

"Turn on the light!" the voice demanded, much deeper now.

The boy ran up to the circuit breaker and pulled down the massive iron handle. Under the damp ceiling, the lantern row came to life followed by a dull and familiar clicking. Gore gazed around the room, his eyes adjusting, when he noticed the rusted tractor with broken windows and amulets.

Here's a sister, Gore thought.

The woman turned around.

In one hand she held a chicken and Gore eyed her clutching an ax in the other. Dark blood had been dripping from the stub of the chicken and was pooling on the floor.

A wiry black dog ran up and began to lick the chicken's stub.

"And who is this here," the voice said.

Gore heard a patter as a wiry black dog ran into the shed and began to lick the chicken in the woman's hand. He stepped back and looked back up at the woman.

"Who are you?" the woman whispered.
CHAPTER 2

Metropolis

"What did i tell you?!" Schwartz hissed under Gore's ear. "It's all true!"

Gore's fingers drummed on the steering wheel. He glanced carefully at the bushes that cloaked the front of the abandoned cottage.

"The mills of God grind slowly," he whispered.

Schwartz's gaze traveled along the lonely street of the low-rise district, where the tops of wayside oaks were blurred by the smoke-blue twilight.

"Yeah, tease me," the former priest grumbled sarcastically.

Gore killed the engine, bent over the seat and grabbed the former caravanner by the lapels of his leather coat.

"Go, ahead, hit me!" Schwartz screamed. "Put some power in it this time!"

Gore squirmed with revulsion and relinquished his hold. "What's the point?" he muttered.

Schwartz slumped inside his huge coat.

"Well you want to know what disgusts me?" Schwartz said. "Who knew that our tightly-coupled existence comes out to nothing in the end?"

Gore re-thought his decision to strike Schwartz but again came to the conclusion that doing so would be beneath his dignity.

His thoughts immediately shifted to a woman exiting the abandoned cottage they had been watching. The woman was much older than Gore and walked with a slight limp around the back of the building.

Gore opened his door and exited slowly. Schwartz protested, "Don't do that!" grabbing Gore's right shoulder, trying to keep him in the car.

"Get off of me," Gore whispered angrily as he shook off Schwartz's tight grasp and bolted silently around the cottage.

When he reached the backyard, he found the woman lying near the kennel.

Gore rolled the woman over on her back, and raised her eyelids as he pulled out a flashlight. There was a hopeful sign in the contraction of her pupil. He carefully picked up the woman and returned to the car.

"Help me carry her!" Gore hissed. "We'll take her to the lab!"

They placed the woman in the back seat of the car. Gore first felt for her pulse, then slowly, he lifted her blouse — the woman's gills were in their infancy.

"Bring me my bag!" Gore shouted.

"We won't have a chance to transport her to the lab. The patrols—"

Gore growled at Schwartz, "Just do as I said!"

Schwartz ran to the car's trunk and brought the surgical bag. Gore dug out his scalpel and a bottle of alcohol, which he carelessly poured all over the instrument. All he needed was to make six longitudinal incisions, a little higher than the gills.

When he finished, Gore said, "Seems that she will live, for a short time. You never know how long exactly."

"If she will, why do we have to take her to the lab?" Schwartz stammered.

"Just shut up!"

They drove along winding streets, past the collapsed factories, abandoned huts, empty schools, and looted shops. All the while Mount Dragon Knot and the white fortress of the Vatican remained in sight; a city and a huge mountain together as one piece, piercing the skyline. Gore slowly pulled up to an intersection and killed the engine. The road up ahead seemed suspicious. They waited for a half hour, silent, just to be sure. When they felt that enough time had passed Gore slowly rolled the vehicle forward. It became immediately clear that this was a huge mistake. The roadside bushes shook and jumped out as if alive, advancing toward the car like something Gore could only liken to a fantasy novel.

"Step on it!" Schwartz yelled, slapping Gore on the back. "I told you! Patrols!"

Police cruisers roared onto the road leaving their camouflage of elder bushes. The dazzling white headlights of the cruisers hit Gore's face. Gore hit the gas and steered to the right cutting off the armored police vehicle. Blue lights lit up the area as sirens tore through the air. Gore hammered the car across a lawn throwing up pieces of turf. The out-of-control car crumpled a low gray fence and careened through the yard of a cottage and another fence and clothesline soon followed. They careened back onto the road Gore wrenching the wheel right, left, and right again. "Take it easy!" Schwartz cried in a gurgling voice that came from the back of the vehicle. "What are you doing?! Bitch!" Gore glanced back for a moment. The woman in the back seat with Schwartz had woken and was trying to furiously scratch his face. Suddenly, with a final punch, the former priest struck her and the fight ended. She lay there motionless. Gore sped the car toward the ditch between two knolls, turned onto a country road and hoped the patrols knew nothing about this loophole. The bridge over the creek was sagging in a menacing way. But this was the whole point of his plan — no one would ever guess a car could be hidden beneath such a rundown structure. They could hear the sirens coming closer. Patrol cars sped over the bridge and after a few minutes were out of hearing.

When the coast seemed clear they moved cautiously back onto the road and continued to the outskirts of the city until they finally reached their destination — the two-story house where the lab was located. It was 2 a.m.

Gore ran up to the porch and quickly knocked at the door. Ages past before the door finally opened, at least it felt that way to Gore.

"Yea, take your time!" Gore barked through the partially opened door. "Don't you know how important this is for us?"

Alluyank and Metsulla stared at him and waited for his orders. Gore drew out a cigarette, twisted off the filter, shaking as he struck match after match.

"The car," he muttered.

Alluyank and Metsulla went to the car and carried the unconscious woman into the house and down to the cellar. Moaning and still holding his head with both hands, Schwartz followed them. Gore just stared at the lonely street. He felt nothing but a frosty emptiness inside. He stomped his cigarette and drew a new one from the pack. He took his time with the second cigarette, carefully regarding the surroundings before he took the stairs down to his underground lab. Schwartz already was sitting in a chair against the wall. The former priest unbuttoned his huge leather coat — his long shirt wet with blood. At the first Gore thought it was Alluyank's work as the two were always at swords' points. He was so lost in thought that it wasn't until later that Gore remembered the fight in the car and —
CHAPTER 3

Hittite Reservation

"And who is this?" the voice said. Gore considered his surroundings. This must have been horse stable years ago, but no longer. It had been reconstructed to something else that Gore couldn't put his finger on, complete with rusted tractor inside. The roof was leaking; small drops struck Gore's shoulders. He noticed symbols of Hittites' totem animals in the various amulets on the tractor's front grille. An amulet of a fox foot, owl feather, shabby, almost bald bear's head, they were all dirty gray — giving the appearance that their fur was processed to reach the desired color.

"Were you crying?" Gore asked softly, seeing that the woman had clearly been distraught.

Her muddy-bluish pouty lips formed a faint smile on her dark-brown face.

"I was," she said. "It was needed for the ritual. My name is Metsulla. And you might be the caravanners of The Holy Church?"

"Horace Pulvill," Gore introduced himself. "And this is Libya Minor, my wife."

The woman tossed aside the ax and fowl, dusting her hands on her blouse as she stood. There she stood upright, looking at the deep red face of the setting sun. There was a dusty road stretching in the middle of the open plateau behind the barn, which was more like a square. This is the heart of Hittite Reservation Gore realized. He was sure of this, as sure as he was of the land below him.

After an exchange of niceties Metsulla led the caravanners to her home. Along the same bald hill they all went down, and close behind came the silly boy and the wiry black dog; chicken feathers still stuck to his nose. They passed the gangways again on the way down the hill, the workday was over.

"You do not look like a sister in Christ," Gore said to the woman softly. "The boy who has brought us here calls you sister".

The woman smiled. "I and Alluyank are cousins, true enough, I am a sister! Furthermore Alluyank did not make any mistake when he called upon me to lead the reservation."

Before the trip Gore had examined the reservation's profile, and there was entirely different name mentioned as a head of a clan — Artzawa-chief. More than likely he was Metsulla's father. But there was something masculine about this woman. She wore a plaid shirt, trousers, high-heeled shoes and a cowboy hat. Her walk was firm, a heel pressing the earth heavily, reminding everyone that she was in charge with every step. Metsulla's three-story house was in the wild, but still close to the hydroelectric power station. Gore could see water in the station roaring from Metsulla's home and could hear the sounds of the slow rotating turbines. The courtyard had been enclosed by the concrete fence with only the lantern shedding its deep orange hue on the surrounding earth.

"Alluyank, sweety, go home!" Metsulla said. "You are no longer needed." The boy lowered his head and walked away. The ashen dusk engulfed him.

"Please, come in!" Metsulla said to her guests.

The downstairs rooms were not too spacious and hosted very few decorations. Gore strode over colorful rugs, interwoven with various diamond patters and regarded one of the dull chests that was covered in sundries. Dream catchers had been hung over-head and Gore found this to be curious. Gore spun around to the noise above him. Patter, girlish squeals and laughter were coming from above. Metsulla, whose steps had softened once she entered her domain, turned over and murmured: "The moon is on the wane, it stirs the blood!"

Gore looked into the dining room, and stared at the ceiling. It wasn't much of a ceiling as much it was a clerestory; a glass pyramid framed in oak that featured a carving of a primitive hunter catching a deer.

Libya Minor and Gore took a place at the long table in the far corner of the dining room, where Gore spied another good luck charm — the white sparkling bone skull of the mountain goat. Marigolds had been inserted in the sunken eye-sockets and its jagged goatish grin had been decorated with blue beads. As they sat at the table Gore noticed a fragrant steam flowing from the kitchen, and for that small moment, Gore realized the harmony that was in this home.

Gore's day dream was suddenly interrupted when colorful beaded curtains that separated the rooms burst open and a naked torso appeared. Gore looked up to see scar running the length of the man's face and down when he noticed the crumpled leather boots and pants of the creature before him. Gore stepped back from the tabled as a cramp crawled along the scar. The sepulchral deep voice said:

"I see you, I see you! Urus-guruh-paradise! You have steel armor in place of your heart and your blood feels colder than a frozen lake — mind the shadows of the past!"

Libya Minor was shaking. Gore put out his hand and tore off the false scar from the cook's face. He squeezed the steaming forehead and his palm rode up to the hairline. The wig fell on the table as if a shrunken skin. Three girls pounced into the room, stumbled at the doorstep and began to giggle, covering their mouths with brown hands. At first it seemed to Gore that at least two of them were every bit as clever as Metsulla's cousin. Without the disguise, Gore saw that the cook was a young man, and the transformation continued as he took off his cataract contact lenses.

"These mad caps need thorough watch!" Metsulla grunted, pushing out the girls from the dining room. "Go away!" She ordered to them. "And you sir march back into the kitchen and bring us the supper!"

"Excuse me!" the cook giggled. "I thought my sisters were here! I just wished to play pranks on them."

He grabbed the wig, and ducked into the kitchen.

Metsulla washed up her hands in a bowl, and sat down to the table.

"I'm surprised that the Church Council of Five had set its seal to the request of Hittite Reservation — I suppose so — with open eyes, hmm?" She said drawlingly. "Or did they lose sight of the big picture?"

Gore shrugged. He couldn't make it out.

"Do you have any objections?" he asked. "In the capacity of a Local Prefect you can file an appeal. Standard Baptism Procedure, you know."

Metsulla handed him a raspberry. "Ha, an appeal, good one!" She snickered.

Gore pulled out his bag and set it on the table. He took out a folder with the history file:

"Veritema Togkuos, age of 76, a three time widower," he read aloud. "Five children by every marriage, and only two daughters. From his early youth upwards he mastered a few crafts: deer-stalking, trading, weaving (hats, capes, and mats), things of that nature."About me: "...by my nature and through the use of human creativity I am a righteous man. Mother Earth is my teacher. I have reached such a state of being to sharpen wit to my inwardness, by incessant purification of the heart from all filthiness."

Metsulla lifted her hands in dismay.

"And what's wrong with Veritema Togkuos," Gore stated.

"Damn you, Tara!" Metsulla cried suddenly. "We're starving!"

The boy tripped into the dining room with a serving tray, turkey pot roast with sweet potatoes and cranberries laid on the silver surface. He laid it on the table, backed away and disappeared behind the canopy of hollow beads.

"You want to know what is wrong with Veritema?" Metsulla said slowly. "And I wonder why Holy Church does not worry about him?"

"Why should the church be worried?" Gore said. "As you know, for the Holy Church, every saved soul is like the rain after a long drought —heaven is full of the joy, and for the one, who accepted Christ by faith, the gates to the heaven are open and the soul knows God!"

Staring at Gore's stomach, Metsulla backed away from the table, spread her square shoulders and scratched the eyebrow. She demonstrated a sort of the musing.

"The thing is," she croaked, "that Veritema Togkuos is a grindylow."

Gore gave a gasp of surprise. He barely held on to his fork.

"The divine scourge!" Gore whiffed. "Then it's a no indeed! The Council of Five will never let it to come into being." Before Gore's eyes, the lines were dancing vividly '...by my nature and through the use of human creativity I am a righteous man'. "— I believe he knew what The Holy Church's policy is toward grindylows. The baptism is impossible for him so I don't understand..."

Metsulla shook her head and poured a full glass of red wine. She drained it to the bottom, at one gulp.

"I thought as much!" she said.

Lydia Minor crossed herself. Gore tried to put the folder into the bag, but there was something inside and it jabbed out the folder upward, springing.

"I think you it is better for you both not to come home, when it's nearly dark," Metsulla said in a ventriloqual way, noticing Gore's fuss.

"Good idea," Libya supported her. "Let's stay here tonight."

Finally Gore managed with the folder. Metsulla wiped dry her lips with a napkin.

"This calls for a drink," she suggested.

"What did you do in the shed?" Gore asked, gazing at her.

"That is not your business," the woman muttered.

Metsulla was on her second glass and sipping it slowly. Gore had the time to ponder the situation. His gaze rested on the horns covered with a repeating figure 'eight', from top to bottom. Gore saw an 'eight' such as this already in the shed, on the tractor's front grille. Maybe, it's not a bad idea, Gore meditated, to delve through Vatican archives and find sacred meaning of the number. However, it's amazing how all it goes on, two hundred miles of the desert, and after that — the oasis of the Hittite Reservation; mountains, lakes, and forests, a riot of colors after a blinding yellow-grey uniformity. Procurator Ramos had never been here from the very start of his reign. Looking at the dancing flecks at the copper bottom of the bowl, Gore recalled the sun-scorched desert he and Libya Minor had crossed today — the New Testament said the Apostle Saul had been met Christ here and here he had been baptized. That was a different time, the place felt cursed. The rocky valley, without a single tree was covered in scorpions and other dark creatures, and, of course, there was the convex black-blue sky with scraps of the clouds around the edges that never seemed to go away —
CHAPTER 4

Metropolis

Immediately gore thought it was alluyank's work, he and Schwartz were always at it, he was so distracted he hardly recalled the fight in the car only hours earlier.

Gore gazed down at the table and the girl before him.

It was a sophisticated surgery, but he could do it with his eyes closed, without any mistake. He was sure of this. In a half-hour after he embarked upon the operation as Metsulla aided him, engaging the fusion system, and administering the saline. Gore and Alluyank took the glandular buds separated from the woman's body and put them into the infants, in the middle of the flask where the fusion matrix was putting forth purple-yellow-white flowers.

"Take it off!" Gore said. "I have finished."

"So much for that!" Schwartz exclaimed suddenly. He squinted in the bright light, having no clue as to where he was and what was going on. Gore pulled off the gloves, dropping them in the tray. He wished to deal with all this quickly; he needed to get test results. He stopped to wash his face with cold water. He overcame the exhaustion but only for a moment before it fell upon him again.

As Alluyank was taking the instruments readings, Metsulla returned into the operating room with a package of fresh underwear and a change of clothes.

"Ready for the bath time?" Metsulla said.

"On my way!" Gore smiled, content with his work.

She threw a towel on his shoulder, backing the smile.

"It won't take a minute, so—" he said. "I trust you."

"Just get out!" Alluyank said, smirking. "I can manage all this here!"

In the bathroom Gore undressed quickly, and then started the hot-water, letting out clouds of steam. He leaped into the bath, under the shower, and began to sponge himself furiously. The exhaustion was still here and it had no intention of melting away under the warm water.

"How are we doing?" he asked, returning in the lab. "I'm not going to drop the ball on this."

"So far, so good." Alluyank said. "Don't worry!"

Gore tapped on his breast pocket and realized he had left his cigarettes at the porch.

"I'll be right back," Gore stated as he turned back toward the stairs.

The old wooden steps creaked under his feet as he slowly and tiredly walked up the steps. He enjoyed two pensive smokes and made his way back to the lab.

Schwartz made a dart for him:

"Has it worked?"

Gore frowned.

"I do not know."

"Look, you despise me, I know, but I can help you — Vatican carries out research in the field of Mount Dragon Knot, many do not know!"

"Really?"

"Yes, I have seen it, they call it the Thunder Bird project. Just contact the nearest branch of the Council. My man is on the reception. Request the file on historical data No. 28-13, the password is the same, Thunder Bird."

"And what is this file?" Gore asked.

"Just call him!"

"Okay, okay, we will discuss this further."

The woman was still alive. Hundreds of them have passed through his hands; hundreds of autopsies and none of these women was Shandra. Gore could not say what would have happened if he had found her at last, he had been horrified at the thought to see Shandra on operating table one day. To rescue her was his greatest desire. He had spent two years trying to get a tiny bit of information about her whereabouts. His conspirators had come up with some addresses, but sometimes he felt it was all for nothing — and always there was a den, the very bottom of urban life, where one could find answers to these questions but there was never Shandra.— There were women, very similar to her, but none were Shandra. With no one to rescue, people ridiculed him, they smoked thin cigarettes and they looked at him curiously, considering the kind of man that stood before them. "He's a pervert," they would mutter, "he just wants to screw a grindylow". He went back to the porch to reflect on thirdly awaiting Alluyank. He ashed his cigarette and his cheeks grew numb.

"She has died," Alluyank said behind him.

"When?"

"32 minutes since the surgery."

Gore flung away the cigarette.

"Fine. Be on the watch!"

He came down the steps, opened the trunk and checked the bag — everything there was okay. Though he checked the content of it hundreds of times, he looked into this once more without thinking.

By car he came to Council of Five at Saint Peter's Dome. There was a young caravanner on his duty in the standing still under stained-glass window. He was wearing all black, except for a thin white collar on his shirt.

"Good morning!" Gore said. "I need a file on data No. 28-13, password Thunder Bird."

The boy's eyes got helpfulness and willingness, and he asked:

"Can you give me some hints on who sent you?"

His voice was low and sweetly bland.

"You should know."

"Without the name, there is no file." the caravanner said, his face broke into a sunny smile. "Under no circumstances."

He made a move under the table, pressing a button.

"It is a mistake," Gore said. "Goodbye!"

An intercom-box squeaked. The caravanner hunched over it, almost doubling himself, and for a while, in this uncomfortable position, he listened to the overbearing tirade in his single head-phone.

"Absolutely," he said to the box

There was another barking from the box suddenly the voice was disconnected with a terrific crackling. The caravanner straightened.

"You're right, it was a mistake," the caravanner stated coldly.

Gore leaned over the front desk and gazed into the young man's eyes. There was nothing to read.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"No, you can't."

He returned to his car and drove closer to the back entrance of Council of the Five. During this hour, no one came in or out. "Things are not always as they seem," thought Gore. Schwartz lied. Was his purpose to usurp me?" Gore considered. After Gore had been assured there couldn't be a tail, his road trip down to the city was circuitous, aimless — he was just dawdling along the streets. On arrival home, he ran the car in the garage, took a rag and a wiped the blood out of the back seats. He suffered, desiring to have a smoke again. He went into the house. Libya Minor stood at the stove, stirring something in a sauce pan. He took the cup with a day-old tea and jolted it, almost breaking the cup.

"Good morning" Libya Minor said, not turning to him. "What were you doing in the basement?"

"It is noon right now," he said. "And I did nothing there."

She turned around to him. Her eyes were swollen with tears.

"Are you hungry?" she asked. "Would you like to have something? Creamed chicken?"

"Okay"

She approached him.

"The same stench," she said. "I hate it."

"I've already taken a shower."

"It is still here."

She slipped out of his arms, and filled a plate of soup. She sat down at the table, facing him, cupping her chin in hands.

"I've to go to the bathroom," he said. "I am exhausted."

He blockaded the door against Libya, undressed and examined himself in front of the mirror. The gills on his chest swelled like a bellowing forge. Gore felt the edges of the gills and there was no pain.

"Let's go to bed," he said, returning to the kitchen. "We have a very short time before the twins wake."

He plunked down the bed and waited getting her into his arms.

"Osmanli phoned you yesterday," Libya Minor said in a weird brittle voice.

"What did he say?"

"He said 'Shandra has died.' Gore closed his eyes.

"Anything else?"

"No."

"He doesn't have the right to call home. And you..."

"Who is Shandra?"

Gore thought hard.

"It is a prearranged signal," he said. "Now it's our time".

Libya didn't believe him.

"I'm going to see Osmanli," he said. "I have to investigate the matter."

Libya Minor sobbed quietly.

"Nothing good can come of this," she said. "The things like this only lead to death!"

"Calm down," Gore snorted, rolling away from her to the phone. "Damn! No signal. Look, I must go!"

He dialed again; there was a click in the handle.

"Night — Call — Collect," Gore said to the strident vacuum of the response, loud and clear. "Should — Start — Now!"

At the other end his own tinny voice replied: "Confirmed!" Gore hung up the receiver. A lot of calls ought to be done, fully automatic, from coast to coast. And Gore's people ought to execute the instructions—

"Maybe, I will not come back," Gore said hoarsely.
CHAPTER 5

Hittite Reservation

The same dream always haunted him, always the same and without any changes — the nightmare about the bombing of Vatican — he lived in dread of the war; though there was never any reason for anyone to uncover his greatest fear.

However, in his schools he had been an unbidden participant of the warfare, and as a result, he decided he would become a caravanner.

The shock wave of these significant memories dwelt in his mind vividly, untouched and bright—

At first the school bus jolted, the way a bus jolts when the wheels cross over something bigger than a brick. (The school's quash-team had been returning from a competition. In those dark days Gore genuinely believed that a post of the middle hitter is the biggest bluebird that he or someone else would have caught and held down.) The bus jolted, and the driver had shut off the engine, just before the turn to Saint Peter's Dome. Outside there was a tremendous commotion and Gore peeked out of the window to see pale-bluish helmets flashing back and forth in the ruckus. A water cannon, which had been packed completely into powerful armor with the emblem of the League of Nations on its pale green side, approached the school bus, blasting protestors in its way.

Through the open window Gore heard a man's voice, arguing: "The Vatican's budget may be large, but not large enough to stop it," the voice tailed off at a loss, and then added: "My god, its happening."

It was as if the city had just exploded. Shots crackled, something thundered somewhere, wafting smoke filled the air, and there was a distant increasing roar, as if thousands of giant dragonflies were flying ever closer to Gore and his bus.

Gore closed his eyes, visualizing them clearly.

High up in the air, a deep, droning sound followed them. They flew in the mixed rows, their eyes radiating with an emerald glow.

A man wielding a gun pounced into the bus and told the driver to get around the commotion. "Make it snappy!" he shouted. "Minnows are in town!" The driver swore loudly, and then he dropped F-bombs all throughout his desperate attempt to turn the bus back on the narrow street. The Minnows were a well-known terrorist group, who dreamt to destroy Mount Dragon Knot and Vatican too. Finally the bus had turned back, and for a long time they drove down the alleys, until they got to the gymnasium. At the far side of the building all the phones rang and rang, bursting from the calls of the worried parents.

Suddenly in the corridor, Colman, an ample-bodied boy from a parallel class, caught Gore by the collar-button of his suit jacket. Colman grabbed it furiously, rolling his eyes, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, and began to talk about the terrible things happening in the city. At last Gore had got rid of this alarmist, slid into a smoky stall, locked the door and closed his eyes — there were no flying dragonflies anymore.

But Colman's words were still here and they echoed in his head, jumbling all the time — someway or another about the Minnows. The Minnows were responsible for the kidnapping of newborns from the plebeian maternity clinic. They would implant the fireflies in the newborns and this horrific sight changed something in Gore. But it was not what called him to be a caravanner. His call came from a bullet. The same evening, when all of this was almost over, the principal went to announce the defusing of the crisis. — The same evening Gore felt like being alone and decided to take a stroll in the yard. He made his way to the iron fence, which had been overgrown with sweetbrier bushes. There was the bridge and roadway below him, a spaghetti junction. The thick mist of motor vehicle emissions hung thick in the air. A little higher, on the horizon, the scarlet gold light of the evening hit the jagged wall of sharp hills. At that very instant Gore heard the dragonflies again, it seemed their strength were much more than last time. Gore turned around and shook his head to throw off the hallucination. It was not until he heard a zip, and saw as the first bullet hit the olive tree behind him, that he realized this was not a dream. (Actually, it was the second, as most bullets travel faster than the speed of sound; Gore had read it somewhere and kept in mind 'you will never hear the bullet that kills you'), then he felt it as the second bullet hit him (actually, it was the third), stinging his back. The pain ran from his nape to tailbone and a suffocating feeling came and carried him away.

When Gore awoke, he felt a muffled smell of chlorine and starched sheets, and then heard his mother's voice: "What did they want to achieve after all?"

Gore glanced through slitted eyes — white walls, a ward in the hospital, and there was his mother's silhouette on an ivory background. He could read on her face that familiar brokenness against the world, which he had not noticed in his early days but began to recognize later.

"They have only one goal," his father muttered, "to lead everyone to jump through the same hoop!"

Gore screwed head round to see his father, felt the stitch in his shoulder and groaned. His mother rushed to the bed and called for him tore main motionless.

The bullet went through and through. Gore had recovered quickly.

The dragonflies had disappeared from his life, for now.
CHAPTER 6

Metropolis

"Maybe, i will not come back," gore said hoarsely.

Libya Minor grabbed his arm.

"Should you go to Osmanli?"

Gore palmed her hair lovingly.

"I must."

He went down to the garage, locked the door, walked to the far end of the room and rolled out two cans with saline from the cabinet. He replaced the back seats of the car, put a body bag on the platform, and put the drop-bottles of saline on the floor. Then he managed the ampoules. Once the matrices from MDK fuse, there will be no one available to do the injections. The process must be automated, Gore thought. Nerve stimulators, serums, potions, he put them in the slots at both sides of the body bag; every drug had a tag of the corresponding color, covered with the luminophor. Even if there had been a failure of the automatic control system, Gore would have had a chance to do all the things needed manually and in the complete darkness. He shut the trunk, set the back seats where the cans had been placed, and cloaked them with tarps.

He came into the house. The twins were already awakened. They hugged their father silently. Big-headed children, the gills, green leather.

A couple of grindylows.

Whatever he had been doing, all of this was for them, for their cure, to cure the thing that never had never been curable.

The same goal he had been pursuing with his gamble about the fusioning of a man with Mount Dragon Knot. The twins had been born normal, and then they had got a gill disease. Without the drugs Gore had made, they would have died in a short time. He must complete the things what he had begun to. No more grindylows. Anywhere. He must to cure his children—

The doorbell rang. Libya Minor went out to get the door. Osmanli entered the room and looked at Gore unwinkingly.

"We must be on the move," Osmanli said.

Gore stood up slowly, suddenly feeling the strong desire to stay.

"Are we ready?" he asked.

"All set," Osmanli replied.

The way to the golden cheetah casino took 20 minutes at most. Nazar Bashaw was on duty tonight. He stood away from the card-tables. Hidden at the back of the mob, he watched the players cautiously. He had seen the visitors and touched his hat in greeting, but they still had to be waiting. There were the alcoves along the walls with grindylow-women inside. They were sitting in enclosing glass in the order to protect them from the drunks, who too often had the "brave idea" to crush a cigarette by a grindylow body. All the grindylow-women had been droned in sequin long evening dresses. At the end of their terminal gill disease they lived in the aquariums, illuminated by lanterns from the bottom upwards. They had a grotesque and fascinating look in flowing gowns, creating the proper glory for this shadowy location. Meanwhile, the Casino's occupants were unique and sundry, from pimps to patricians, and almost all were thrill-seekers and ghouls. The fumes of cigars were drifting down from the ceiling, as pit band played out a foot tapping jazz melody, the restaurant was full of non-stop eating, drinking and laughing people, but it was not evening yet. Nazar Bashaw waved over security personnel, pointed to the card-tables then took Gore and Osmanli to a back area. They went downstairs, and slid by the listless and slightly bleary-eyed bodyguards. There were objects all over the shop, wigs of all colors, sprinkled with powder. Gore guessed it was cocaine.

"Report progress!" Osmanli said at once.

Nazar Bashaw made quick full-circle in his chair. He was like a muskrat, full of nerves.

"Not to worry!" He grumbled. "I have received three calls."

"Okay," Gore said slowly. "And how many people have embarked on this plan by now?"

He watched Nazar Bashaw tip back in his armchair twitchy, cross his legs, smooth his sleeveless jacket, and clasp his hands together with crisped his fingers.

"Well, then?"

"Fifteen, for Christ sake!" Nazar Bashaw burst out. Gore took off the receiver and dialed a long number:

"Thirty-two — collation!" it answered directly.

There was a metallic sound, and then a measured counting with Gore's voice loud:

"one! — two! — three! — four!—"

There was a gap at the end, some failure of automatic controls, and Nazar Bashaw tightened a little, craning his neck, but then it clicked:

"—Fifteen!"

"Take a chill pill!" Gore said to Nazar Bashaw who bent over the glass coffee-table and pulled a razor toward his nose.

"When was the last time you listened to the tape?"

"Twenty minutes ago!"

Gore forced himself to smile:

"Well, let us say good-bye!"

"Your plan to cut the knot —I'm not so brave," said Nazar. "Do you mind if I take a tiny bit of serenity?"

"Go ahead."

Nazar Bashaw inhaled the drug track through his red nostrils, smoothing his greasy hair as he finished.

"Here it is," he said in a more shaky way. "Hegh, what a miserable, scrubby person I am."

"It was not my choice."

"It's your kids' choice," Nazar Bashaw said. "And your choice too! You had identified the gill disease and poisoned yourself; became a grindylow, to fuse yourself to Mount Dragon Knot, and you'd launched the program of MDK's self-destruction!"

"Wrap it up. It would be better if you kick the drug habit. It seems you have got a grain of madness instead of a promised serenity."

"I don't care!"

Nazar Bashaw moistened his lips and got the glass of water.

"Do you think there's any chance, that I won't be seeing you again?"

"Goodbye!" Gore said.

"I'll drive! You're tired," Osmanli said as they walked out.

The sun was still high and yet sinking clearly, it was too bright for him. Gore bent his temple against the passenger door glass and shut his eyes.
CHAPTER 7

Hittite Reservation

Libya minor grabbed gore's knee under the table and pointed at Metsulla with her eyes. Gore looked at the mistress too. Metsulla had a melancholy attitude, exactly the same as a half hour back, but now she was almost motionless. You would have to peer at her for long time to notice any slight difference; a trembling of eyelashes or something like that. The plate of food was untouched. She had forgotten it. There was a saturated electric silence in the dining room, lurking in every atom of its air, as it usually goes before a thunderstorm: the weather is calm and fresh, except for the dark clouds raging on the horizon. It suddenly dawned on him that all this had been happening to him at one time. A pregnant moment of waiting, an electric silence. It always seemed to Gore his life had a half resemblance to a complex symphony with a number of counter-melodies, all of them were important for the whole concept, and now the time had come to hear a main countermelody at top volume. After he went to Roman Ecclesiastical Academy, he finally had got access to The Vatican Apostolic Library. As contrasted to Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Islam and all other religions, Christianity was a lucky one. It had an evidence of its doctrine, the evidence not only from the depths of the centuries, but much more — the evidence as a pillar of society, as a link of times. Actually, Mount Dragon Knot was the pillar. For two millennia, there were no doubts of Divinity of MDK. Historical documents had been talking about MDK aspects in a roundabout way — whether it had been created in the huge mountain at once with lots of holes, communicating cavities, blood-vessels, glands and innards of a living body inside? Or it was a slow growth through the centuries? Were there sacred artifacts, MDK sprouts, also called bouncy-nest-balls, seals or fireflies already? It was known that at least one cradle had been there by then, because there had been a place where the Apostle Paul had been baptized, a first ever MDK cradle-baptism in human history. The spread of Christianity had increased the number of cradles. MDK had been breeding them above its body; as part of the amazing mystery during the ages. Of course, the apostle Paul had been taking a real baptism, a baptism in a cradle, which was awarded only to caravanners at their ordination. A baptism of Veritema Togkuos would have been only symbolic thing, as Veritema was a grindylow and couldn't get it. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. Gore had been changed as well. He had had no doubts anymore. After his ordination, baptism in a cradle and meeting the flying dragonflies it couldn't go another way. After you and Mount Dragon Knot were unified into one, the only thing the mind could reach was a white never-ending emptiness flooded in all directions, and it was full of divine light, presence of God, and there was no more time. The time was done.

Almost any caravanner would tell you a very similar story.

We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.

Gore had seen a grandylow with its terminal disease once in his life, when he had been a third-year at the Ecclesiastical Academy during the study of morbid anatomy. Driven by a couple of Brothers of Mercy, a grindylow slid into the darkened bowl amphitheater slowly, as if piece by piece. It seemed he had to assist all the time; every clumsy limb, arms and legs, and even his sloping massive shoulders. He was very tall with a dark yellow face. He wore a flabby, black leather coat. There was something hidden under his coat, something alive, and it bubbled, sighed, nuzzled, muttered and half-whispered, as if struggling with it's unhappy circumstances. Gore almost bit his tongue when he saw the big yellow head flop on the rib-cutting table.

"Let's go to bed," Libya Minor said, feeling nervous over Metsulla's suspended animation. "The trip was long; we are tired."

"Is there any chance to persuade you to baptize Veritema?" Metsulla asked, suddenly waking. "As far as I know the caravanners are free to baptize anyone—"

The way the conversation changed, amazed Gore. He had got an imaginary idea of what was happening and now it fell apart.

"Cemetery of Orphans!" Metsulla said. "Absolutely nothing has been changed since the Middle Ages, right?"

Libya Minor looked at her in surprise. The canopy of hollow beads stirred as in a draft.

"What are you talking about?" Libya asked, a bit confused.

"And what is worse than the army of hero's, ha?" Metsulla said. "Let me show you something."

"It's quite late now," Gore said. "Cemetery of Orphans, I have heard something but—"

"This is no laughing matter," she snarled. "There are things you should know as a caravanner, as a person at least, as someone for whom MDK is his own vine and fig tree too!"

"Do you want to show us a cemetery?" Libya Minor asked. "A cemetery of grindylows?"

"I want to give you hope! Recently, the percentage of grindylows and gill-disease people among Hittites has increased, and we have to find a cure for their illness."

"There is no cure for gill-disease, or being a grindylow," Gore said. "That is why, Holy Church no longer considers — in contrast with the Middle Ages — that leprosy is visitation From The Devil. Unlike gill-disease, which doesn't seem to have a specific pathogen; leprosy is perfectly treatable, even curable if caught early."

"Despite yours skepticism, we have definitely moved on from the point," Metsulla claimed, looking at the caravanners defiantly. "Before proceeding, I'd like to show you our achievements, and then you can make your final decision. I'm not going to persuade you anymore — I only beg you, don't turn the reservation into a cemetery of orphans!"

"Why do you insist on baptizing Veritema, a grindylow?"

"This is useful for the reservation. We can't afford to do regular research, it is too much money. We have some support, mostly European and Asiatic, but it is not enough to maintain the progress. Otherwise, if the Vatican has changed its policy to grindylows and a precedent is created — a grindylow has been baptized, accepted Christ deep into his heart — then—"

"Okay," said Gore, overcoming his hesitation. "Let's make it quick. Remember your promise!"

"Deal!"

Metsulla led the caravanners downstairs in the basement, a large empty room with bare walls, concrete flooring and a freight elevator. The air was cool and biting.

"Help me to raise the elevator's door," Metsulla said. Gore helped her with the tilt-up doors.

The metal grid went up, roaring. The cage had just two buttons, UP and DOWN.

"And now drop it! There's a cut-out-lock, force it in or the elevator will not go."

They passed down three floors, which entrances were all welded with sheet metal. The low rumble noise of the dam increased constantly.

"Welcome!" Metsulla said when Gore rolled up the doors again.

There was a corridor. It was long enough, with low light and echoing acoustics, so it seemed that someone was running ahead of you in the gloom. They came up with a shower room and stopped. There was a lanky man under the showerhead, wrapped in foam flakes. He turned to them without batting an eyelid, hugged himself by shoulders, for some reason disregarding the lower part of his body.

There was a woman too. She had a dark-blue fatigue and army boots. The room was murky, with light-green tiles on the walls, spreading the hopeless smell of fungi.

They moved on to the end of the corridor, reaching next dark room, where Metsulla clapped on the switch.

"Hey, here you are, Mirva!"

A teenage girl named Mirva squinted at her painfully. She sat in the swiveling chair in front of a C-shaped automatic device board. She was dressed in a dainty, summer dress and peep-toe sandals.

"Take a look at your first grindylow here! The rest are in the treatment room. Go back to your home, sweety!"

Mirva ran out to the corridor. The echo of her footsteps made the odd high-pitch squeals. It hurt Gore's ears, like a bat's cry or dripping water in a deep cave.

"Okay! That is the place where the grindylows go through their treatment and recovery. It is a little further away in the next corridor."

Metsulla paced back and forth, flipping the switches up and down. It seemed to be the hydroelectric power station' block control.

Libya Minor looked around.

"These two in the shower room, are they grindylows too?"

Metsulla said leniently:

"Oh no, darling! Grindylows are unable to work. Especially if they have terminal gill-disease."

"That's why I am asking."

"This couple is technical staff."

"What age is the station?" Gore asked.

"Erm — it was nearly twenty years ago, when the turbines and generators were replaced last time," Metsulla said. "But in general, the station can run forever. Of course, if it is designed properly."

Gore rubbed his left shoulder hard, trying to dispel pain from the old bullet wound.

"Is that so?" he asked.

"What a soothing thought!" Gore mused. "What else would you like to show us?"

Metsulla led the caravanners to a metal door behind the switchboard box. It was like a door in a submarine — heavy, oval, riveted with the rotary valve.

"Actually, I'm not going with you," she said. A bulb lit red above their heads. "You don't need me to see all of the details," continued Metsulla, when the door opened.

Gore started to feel uncomfortable.

"Why don't you come with us?" he asked.

"If you are scared, you can take a handheld flashlight," Metsulla said. "It's over there, on the shelf."

"I wouldn't mind having one," Gore muttered, peering inside where nothing could be seen. "Is there lighting?"

"Sure is! Not so bright, of course, it would be harmful for the grindylows treatment. Take a flashlight!"

"Give me one too!" Libya Minor said. "Thanks!"

"I must keep the door closed," warned Metsulla.

"Why?" Libya asked.

"It shouldn't take long," Gore frowned. "Your grindylows cannot be spoiled in less than a few minutes. Let it be as it is—"

Gore crossed the threshold, flicked on his flashlight. The beam caught a syrupy pink puddle on the floor. A dark-green spark flickered at the tunnel's end. Gore hoped it was just the reflection of the flashlight.

"I believe they can't spoil" said Metsulla at last. "I'll be waiting for you here. It's always difficult to see your children's suffering."

The beam of light divided the shadows, squashing them into the corners. There was a scent of wetland warmed by the sun's rays, and it brought Gore back to the lake's shore. The time looped again. He felt a chill and gave a jerk. The water running somewhere raised its voice enough to drown out everything except Gore's thoughts. He reached a high-ceilinged hall, full of gloom, surrounded by green transparent walls. There were human figures inside of the coffin-like aquariums, and they twitched slowly as if they were long strings of seaweed, or some sort of kelp. A long-drawn-out roar was heard, and then something lumbered heavily, rolling waves of sound, as if a sheet of iron was torn apart, through and through. Gore turned around, trying to make out the noise, and found a teen girl standing before him. She screamed, leaped back and scampered away into the source of the rattling. Gore dashed off, following her into the darkness when he suddenly came upon deep water. He grabbed her as the girl kicked him, both falling and floundering in the thick sleeves of the dark liquid. Suddenly, something roared just above him, rattling, as thousands of tanks marched above, and blazing torches of airships crumbling down from the sky. Just let me get out of here, Gore spit, and we'll see— he already started to get up, but all of a sudden the grindylow's huge flipper pinned him to the floor, dealing a powerful blow of right between his shoulder-blades. Suddenly, a light flashed out— Gore squinted and saw Libya Minor. She dropped down a switch on the wall igniting the bulbs that flared around the room.

And then there was silence.

Gore pulled himself out of the water. The girl was sitting with pursed knees and sobbed.

"You!" Gore blurted out. "How did you get this place?"

It was quiet, nothing was collapsing. The world held steadfast once more.

The girl cried.

"Have you been following us?" Gore demanded.

She buried her chin in her knees. The knees were of a normal girl, just slightly ragged. The skin of her face was normal, except for the small flecks of green.

"What possessed you?"

He grabbed the girl and hauled her on her legs. She glanced at him angrily and freed herself.

"What possessed you, I would ask! You scared me!" she stepped back. "I don't know you!"

"What do you mean?" Gore was taken aback. "You must have seen us in the switchboard box room."

Libya Minor approached them. The girl watched her. She was scraping her left cheek, wiping her nose and grating her bare leg, which was already rowed with red welts. It looked like as if it had been irrigated with the slimy mucilage of pink, Gore had seen near the entrance.

Gore thought, maybe, there were two shower rooms, the one for washing after the medical procedures, and the second for... no, there was something else.

"I do not understand," Gore admitted. "Maybe, you?" he asked Libya Minor.

The girl's cheeks began to yank, as if just now she was really scared.

"There now!" said Libya. "Calm down!"

The girl embraced Libya. Gore turned off the light in the treatment room. Three together headed out to the entrance, where Metsulla was already waiting for them.

"What was that noise?" Gore asked her. "I have a weak heart, this stress is killing me."

His heart ached, it was true, but the ache under his left scapula slowly wore him down; the place where he took that first bullet.

"Routine discharge water," Metsulla said. "I'm sorry if it made you uneasy or nervous."

"You should have warned us!" Gore growled, kneading his shoulder. "This "girl" was spying on us. What's her name, I forgot, Mirva?"

"This is not Mirva."

"And who is she?"

"Her ears," Libya Minor said.

"What about them?"

"She is Marta," Metsulla explained. "They are twin sisters."

"I don't understand your point," Gore said sourly.

"Mirva' ears are pierced," Libya Minor said. "Marta's are not."

Metsulla put a bit of plaster on the girl's right cheek, brought a towel, made the girl into an armchair and began to wipe his knees. Gore thought that it was some sort of litmus test of Marta's skin.

"Look, dear, you'll stay the night here and sleep with my little princess in her room." She pointed at Marta. "And no pillow fights!"

It seemed to Gore that the return to the upstairs was always shorter than downstairs. As it always happens, he thought, if you already know the way.

There was someone in the dining room.

At the table, a crooked, bearded giant sat, rubbing his temples.

There was also a bored, bald short man seated to his right.

The short man dangled his feet, bulged out his cheeks and turned his head toward the giant looking at him with pity as the giant groaned, holding his head.

"Ah caravanners!" the short man cried, as he saw Gore and Libya. He reproached Metsulla. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

The short man whisked up by the giant's fingers which grasped the shorter's shaggy red hair. His smoky voice blew: "Shut your trap, Schwartz! I'm dead serious; are you trying to kill me!?"

Looking over the dinner tray and the uncorked bottles of wine, it was obvious that the man suffered with a hangover.

"Professor Leibniz and Dr. Schwartz in the flesh!" Metsulla introduced the couple. "I beg you to be kind and gracious to them."

The bearded Leibniz threw back his head. His eyes were dry and shot with blood as were his skin and cheeks.

"I still don't understand, why I should baptize Veritema?" said Gore. "And what kind of the medicine do the grindylows take, Metsulla?"

"That's not it, it's not about the medicine," Metsulla said. "You must enlist Vatican and Catholic countries in support of the reservation if grindylows are to survive. As for the treatment, all of the grindylows here take three-hour sessions of bathing in the aquariums daily. This is not life, and I'm sure you could all agree. In addition, the treatment is ineffective. Have you ever seen a grindylow at terminal gill-disease? Do you have any idea what that's like?"

Gore shuddered at the memory.

"Yes," he said. "I've seen it once."

"Did you baptize him already?" the short one barged in, almost jumping out of his skin with impatience. "It must be very exciting!"

"Dr. Schwartz is our leading authority on the treatment," Metsulla re-introduced him. "And this redhead man sitting on the bench is Professor Leibniz, our gerontologist!"

Gore put out his hand for Schwartz. The shorty grabbed it and shook vigorously.

"Pleased to meet you!"

"So am I," Gore said, letting out his hand with effort. "That's quite the handshake," Gore said.

"Veritema is confirmed, isn't he?" said Schwartz. "Though, I understand that for such things you have to prepare yourself."

"He is not confirmed."

"That is what I told you," the bearded man tossed his head, popped up his forefinger and said in didactic tone: "It would have been better if we stayed home and drank."

Gore turned away, avoiding the monstrous after-drinking-too-much eyes.

"May I go now?" Marta said.

She stood in the doorway.

"Yes, my dear child," Schwartz brightened and reached out for the girl, as if he was a candle's flame bowing to an invisible draft.

"Go!" Metsulla allowed her.

Leibniz leaned against the wall behind him, craned his neck and began to snore gently.

"Damn alcoholic," Schwartz grunted.

After that there was a pause, which threatened to erupt into an abyss of awkward silence, but Metsulla didn't give it any chance to blossom out.

"Let us cheers to the meeting," she said.

"That's a sober thought!" Schwartz cried.

"It's my fault," Metsulla said. "I should have shown you the treatment room myself. But, as I have already told you, it breaks my heart to see my people suffering!"

Gore crawled down under the table, pulled out the bag and got the history file. He re-read the contents up to down, and made sure that there wasn't any single word, not even mere assumption, of that Veritema Togkuos would have turned out a grindylow. So it seemed almost like there had been someone, in Vatican, wishing to hold back the truth.

"Listen, folks!" said Schwartz. "Let's change the subject. I'd like to share my ideas with you!"

Gore put the file into his bag, snapped the locks shut and drummed his fingers on the bag's crocodile skin.

"What do you mean?" he asked dryly.

Schwartz was delighted even for such response.

"It is very interesting!" he said. "Wait a second, please. I need some preparation!"

Schwartz drew all of the dishes off the table, sat down opposite Gore, and for a while was gathering his thoughts and stroking the table top.

"Well, I guess you have been asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement to have access to Vatican secret archives and, as you know, all of those precautions. Just drop me a hint — a ghost of a hint, I would say — is there any possibility that Mount Dragon Knot is the subject of investigation for Rome too?"

"Who knows," Gore said. "Maybe yes, maybe no."

Schwartz made a wry face, turned away.

"Maybe rain, maybe snow," he muttered, and than faced Gore again. "Anyhow, your answer makes me believe the possibility could not be ruled out! I hope you'll improve my theory of MDK—"

Gore gave a cough.

"Are you instigating me or something?" he said.

Schwartz blushed.

"I told you I know about your non-disclosure agreement."

Gore shrugged.

"Even through MDK is subject of investigation," he said, "this is known only to initiates. Pope and the College of Cardinals, I suppose. And besides, there are a lot of books! In the Archduchy it is hard to get hold of, but abroad there many such things!"

"I just wished to get a new angle on the matter. Here Metsulla, she believes in ghosts, but even so — if you give it a thought, there is something to it, a kernel of sense!"

He stood up, walked across the room to the goat skull and dragged out of its sockets a couple of marigolds. Inside there were the papers rolled into a tube. He put them on the table.

"That's higher mathematics, you know, I'll try to avoid formulas, because, as it's well known — a scholar should be able to explain convincingly how and why the theory works, even to a child."

"We are not children," said Libya Minor.

Schwartz started.

"Excuse me! I didn't mean to offend you."

"I'd like to clarify the point, that's all."

Things are not always as they seem, Gore reminded himself. Schwartz looked through the papers and some of them aside.

"Well, explain to us your theory," Gore said. "And then we'll talk again about Veritema Togkuos, the grindylows' treatment and other things here."

"Sure! Libya, please — give me that — that— oh, thanks a lot!"

Schwartz cut the thread on the bunch of flowers and began to pick off the buds.

"That's right, that's it!"

Gore gazed wide-eyed at him. It seemed it was pointless to ask Schwartz what exactly he was doing.

"This is for visualization," Schwartz said when he had finished. "Look!"

He made the eight with marigolds.

"Here it is, the infinity sign!"

Gore slapped his forehead mentally. Of course! Nevertheless, it was difficult to correlate the mathematical symbol with the primitive belief in ghosts.

The question followed thereupon stunned Gore:

"Do you believe in the reality of parallel universes?"

"What does this have to do with —" Gore started out and exchanged glances with Libya Minor.

Schwartz snapped his fingers.

"Let us begin from the beginning! As a caravanner, you rather agree with the next statement that before Mount Dragon Knot's appearance there were no miracles in the world?"

"That's my old belief," Gore admitted unwillingly. "You really started at the beginning."

"So, do you agree with me? Miracles happened rarely. Let's say that, before Christ, even considering the Holy Scriptures without any criticism, the Old Testament isn't full of miracles too. And then MDK had shown up — a living miracle in the flesh! The more the merrier. The MDK's average growth rate is 140 feet per century. So the main miracle has no intention to vanish into thin air. Why, and where from, have supernatural miracles appeared? What is a miracle from the point of view of mathematics?"

"Unreasonable probability?" Libya Minor asked.

"Well said! The statistical probability of a miracle is incalculable! It is as unlikely as the existence of our Universe — and is modern science says — the one was born from darkness and empty space. In the same way Bible says: and the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. In short — resorting to with elements of philology, physics and higher mathematics — we can say for sure that our universe was born 'from absolute zero'!

"Well, all right, I rather agree with you," Gore said. "All that about the Spirit of God. Although I cannot see where the parallel universes and miracles fit-in?"

"First of all, miracles tend to happen locally, only around MDK area and the islands scattered through the archduchy. Elsewhere in the world we don't see miracles and that's much better for us; as compared with the case if it would have stood otherwise. Just think of that! The MDK's hideous display through Cote d'Azur coastline? Let me give an example. I and Leibniz are Austrians. The natural beauties of Austria are unforgettable. There is lovely countryside full of scenic mountains and picturesque lakes. Shy and nice girls, every man's dream, buoyant economy, health service and social protection at the highest level, and I had never even heard of gill disease, until my twentieth birthday. Then, it came time to begin my master's thesis—"

"Now, you understand?" Metsulla chuckled. "A hard-faced professional! That's who we are so fortunate to have on our team."

"That's not true," Schwartz said. "It's not about me."

"I know," Metsulla waved away. "It was a joke."

"A joke, indeed! Anyway, it is known by now that all the miracles are concentrated in one place. We really have the documented date of the beginning of their display: it happened in the year of our Lord 56.But now I would like to voice another treasonable thought. What if Mount Dragon Knot bears no relation to Christianity or any other religion in general? No relation at all! I mean, yes, MDK was born in the place called Golgotha and so on, and so forth — and Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and he died for our sins, no one doubts it, but what if Christ was only a catalyst?"

"A catalyst for what?" asked Gore. "I do not understand!"

"Do you remember the behavior of the bouncy-nest-balls was during the First World War? MDK area battles were incredibly bloody!"

"Sure, I remember that."

"The bouncy-nest-balls were surrounding the soldiers in the cocoons — something like a wicker bird's nest, as big as a horse —they connected to the soldiers' brain, got the soldier's sight, and thereafter, having finally its own sight, they attacked one another. There were the aggressors and the defenders of MDK, and I'll tell you what! The bouncy-nest-balls never had made a mistake. They were killing only the aggressors, never the allied troops. And what about the fireflies? Its impact on human body much like the cradles."

"Stop messing around," Gore said. "You really don't realize what the act of baptism is. If you only knew, you wouldn't say like that. In addition, though the fireflies are a part of MDK and do no harm the animals they live inside — even the first time, the firefly-drugging separates the victim from reality for evermore."

"No harm for the animals they live inside," Schwartz repeated thoughtfully. "And the animals never get sick. Though, in spite of their sound health, they die a natural death in the same way as their regular outside creatures do — by the will of God, amen! However, you can't deny that after the bouncy-nest-balls' case this is definitively the second attempt to connect MDK to the human nervous system."

"If so, then perhaps you should take a look!"

"Besides that, there are the seals within MDK cavities — the leather bags have nothing but muscle, tendons and circulatory system; no trace of internals or skeletal system. But on the contrary, the all of them have eyes, a spider like terrifying number of eyes around each body, and what would it be for, if it is completely useless?! Well, I'll tell you what, it was one of the first attempts to interrelate—"

"Attempts, to do what?"

Gore screw up his eyes.

"I'm beginning to understand what you are saying. I'm certain the next thing you are going to say is that MDK's trying to use the grindylows to make contact with human civilization, but, unfortunately, the grindylows die like flies."

Schwartz licked his lips, smoothed his bald head and jumped into action with redoubled energy.

"Exactly! MDK violates the laws of physics, and, moreover, I have no doubt that if you built a replica of MDK some other place, the structure would be ruined in a second, collapsing under its own weight! MDK even violates the laws of biology (overturning all the scientific research of Charles Darwin, Gregory Mendel and Carl Linnaeus), the world has been evolving during the last two thousand years, and so far, there's no repeating of MDK evolutionary process. It has no homogenous hereditary characteristics. In some places, it has the cavities the size of a soccer field; elsewhere, it has the giant porcupine quills, moreover, this mountain of miracles needs very little water to maintain its life-cycle. Sure, the MDK _roots receive some substance from_ subterranean springs but what a stunning metabolism."

"So why has contact failed?" Gore asked.

Schwartz spread his arms.

"It's anybody's guess, but it is obvious for me that there's a biological alien life-form without the development of the tools and inventions that have aided the modern age. They are bioengineers, thereby—"

"Thereby, what?"

"It is an unhumanoid civilization. I suspect that the intelligent life there had been developed successfully in the ocean but they say that they never had been living out of the waters. Hence the gills and suspicious lack of water. MDK takes water from the other side of the wall between two worlds — because, I don't know, where else it could be taken from? And what about MDK's design itself? It's as clear as daylight that the Mount is supported from the other side as well."

"That is enough," Gore said, standing up. "You explained all the points I wanted to hear! The attempted contact with intelligent life continuing the last two thousand years, and in our ignorance, that we can't recognize this attempt! Don't you think that all those arguments are far-fetched? And that your theory is nothing more than a tasteless fairy tale."

Gore always thought of his injury as accidental or fateful. — when he had been wounded during the terrorists fighting the police — as this little miracle, this chance bullet, had led him to God. And now somehow Schwartz' theory counseled Gore's self-judgment, killing the possibility of miracles in his life, associating him with grindylows; and the miracle wasn't a miracle anymore—

"Oh, I am sorry, it's my fault, and I misunderstood who you are."

There was a deafening pause, much like the pause after an explosion. In the middle of the cloud, Gore saw his university years in Rome crashing down, his sleepless nights full of learning the Holy Tradition, the ashes of his heart were swirling and smoldering in the air — no, it couldn't be allowed. By no means.

Suddenly Gore found himself squeezing the cross on a chain around his neck:

"And for what?" he asked. "On what grounds do you think any alien civilizations should be wishing to make contact with us?"

"You see, the point is—" Schwartz started, blushing painfully, "that, actually, your question is meaningless! You know, I was once in love with a very pretty Fraulein; and as I understand now, she was not pretty at all. That is just typical of the vitality of youth, which many people take for beauty. Anyhow, by then I wasn't worried about such details, because I was madly in love with her! We walked around Salzburg for hours, holding hands and schmoozing about everything from ours first childhood memories to global philosophical problems. We had been kissing in ivy bushes; we looked at each other all the time, as if caressing and encouraging gone another, and there was a crazy smile always stuck to my lips and hers — by then, I had declared my feelings for her and it was mutual, it was love at first sight —I was completely happy with that — and if you would have asked me then: why and for what I have been doing all these things? Why I didn't put an end to it? Why I was still there? If you told that to me, I'm afraid I would have thought you to be a madman. Declared your feelings?! That's enough! Go home, young man!"

"You resolved an unacknowledged quotation," Gore said sparingly. "In the original, it was a question: what on earth for a man should to enter the kingdom of God and praise the Lord God forever and ever?"

Schwartz nodded vigorously, rather interrupting Gore:

"—and, strictly speaking, why God needs all of us? I hoped you would recognize the quote! The same point of view is about the stages of growing up in all intelligent life forms! At some time, humanoid or unhumanoid, they want to know — if they are alone in the universe? It is a natural desire."

Gore shook his head and stood up. Schwartz started, looking at him with a strange hope.

"I think, that's enough for today," Gore said. "Where's our room?"

Libya Minor supported him:

"It's best to go to bed now."

Metsulla stood up too.

"I'll take you."

Schwartz turned away and tapped his fingers on the table.

"I thought I could count on you but I was wrong," he said.

"Bravo, Doctor! You outdone yourself," Gore stated.

Gore squeezed his bag's handle hard:

"Whatever you think of me — your theory is just a theory and it is unsubstantiated."

"I'll prove you some day you are wrong."

Gore smiled sadly.

"Let it be so."

Schwartz grabbed the bottle, poured the glass and drank it, chattering his teeth frantically.

"Maybe, I should gather the documents before your departure, eh? I have already some scientific supplies. Could you hand the mover to the Vatican?"

Gore shook his head again.

"Do it without me! However, if you don't mind..."

A wee ray of hope flared out within Schwartz face.

"What?" he snapped.

"It would be a big pleasure for me to read your computation," Gore smiled. "Could I look through it?"
CHAPTER 8

Metropolis

On one side of the dike, the lake's charcoal waters lapped steady, and on the other, MDK spurs spread out, stretching for many miles until the Vatican, breathing the mists and marsh vapors; twisted, gnarled roots. However, in the evening light, it was beautiful. Gore took the lake side of the dike, sat down on the nearest half-submerged boulder and lit up a cigarette. Soon after, he happened to squint at the slope from the corner of his eye and notice someone watching him, as if he or she was following him around all the time, waiting for a chance to approach. It was a girl named Milana. She appeared in the minnows' camp six months ago. At her sweet sixteen Milana smiled rarely and preferred to wear military uniform, honoring the memory of her parents, who were minnows too and had been killed in action.

"What are you doing here?" she asked with a guarded look.

Gore took another brief puff at his cigarette and waved.

"I think — the reason is all the same — I'm here to admire the view."

"I thought so," the girl sighed and sat down on the grass. "This is my place to rest my mind. I often come here."

"And I'm here for the third time. It's a beautiful spot, isn't it?"

"Yes, you are right. Could you move over a little, please?"

Milana kicked off her army boots and socks, and then sat beside Gore on the stone. It seemed she was sad and lost in thought. She plunged her feet in the water and stirred with her fingers.

"I like to come here when no one is around," Milana said. "Also I like to discover new places. I and my friend Sheila had this game, when we were children: we used to roam around our home-town, laughing, chatting, and then we have to come back home the same way — it was so fascinating for us."

Gore wanted to but couldn't recall Milana smiling.

"When you were a kid, what did you like most?" she asked.

"Something specific?" Gore adjusted. "There are a lot of things to love: strawberry ice-cream, for example. Or albino mice, or to fly a kite."

"More special," Milana suggested.

She put up a bit her fingers over the water, scaring away a pond-skater that approached too close. Gore looked at the tops of pine trees, through which the sun shone. Milana dangled her feet in the water; the cool of the evening poured over the lake, the crickets sang and the ducks quacked now and then somewhere in the reeds.

Gore knocked out a cigarette.

"I liked to roam around the project sites," he said, lighting up. "Yet we climbed up on the railway bridge, there was our hiding place, you had to go down to the bridge footing."

Milana shrugged.

"I would not dare to do that. It's a marvel how I am afraid of heights. Once I had been persuaded to sit on a horse and I almost fainted just as the fucking sturdy mare took off."

"There was a girl in our gang," said Gore, "She never yielded a bit to us."

Milana looked at him with sincere curiosity, as if a child anticipating of an exciting fairy tale.

"A brave one, I guess?" Milana said. "I'm not like she..."

"She was a brave soul," Gore confirmed. "It is true."

In his senior year, Shandra started dating Colman. After the summer holidays, Colman appeared at school with a new look. He was slim and tanned, he was able to make the jump on the bar effortlessly, and soon the whole class knew that it was nothing more than a part of his training for parachute jumping. Almost all of them had thought of him as soft, and it was hard to believe that he was the same guy. The latest news about him claimed he became a mountain guide in Nepal, wore a beard down to the waist, had written two books and never removed his sunglasses. At the gymnasium, Shandra and Colman walked arm in arm, and when the Pagdians began to bomb MDK, these two enlisted themselves in the volunteer detachments, hiding their true age. Later, Colman said: they were fated to do that. And yet he still maintained that they were fools to do that. Who could have known all the things about near-MDK-living we all know now? Colman was sure that Shandra had been stuck somewhere in MDK, still alive. Gore believed in that too. Was there really much difference between Gore and Colman? It seemed quite so. That damned Colman left the archduchy to live in Himalayas, and Gore had been still living here, hoping against hope to rescue Shandra and from MDK's stranglehold. No doubt, he tried to save his children. He saved his marriage also. Nevertheless, Shandra — his first love —had been the only reason why Gore had decided to enter into the Biological University, despite the fact that physics and mathematics attracted him much more. All of the former MDK' prisoners had not realized what they were doing. After their breakout from MDK, they were being led by the instinct to survive, hiding in abandoned buildings and sewers. At night, they were getting out and wandering towards MDK, desiring, maybe, to return to its bosom, which at first had admitted them as part and parcel of the Mount, and then had rejected them for some reason or another. Most died after a month or two. Gore hoped that if this could be avoided, then there could be a way to make it so that any person, sooner or later, would have turn back to the lost memories — and, maybe, Shandra could too —

So much for that, Gore stopped dead his tracks, I made my choice a long time ago.

The sun had set over the horizon. Without saying a word, Gore and Milana began to climb up the hill, returning to the minnow's camp.

"Hey, look!" Milana said, bending over quickly. "A five-leafed clover!" She gave the flower to Gore, smiling finally. "It always brings luck, right?"
CHAPTER 9

Hittite Reservation

He looked at his chronometer, it was ten o'clock at morning and the sailing to the other side of the lake, where Veritema Togkuos lived, had been scheduled this afternoon — a lot of time to look around and draw some new conclusions. At the exit of the courtyard the same black dog joined him, trotting along with an expression of extreme friendliness on its face. The pine grove kept the cool of the night. It was hot enough in the sun, and it's proximity to the water made Gore want to take a swim — actually, he didn't remember the last time when he ever did it. All his mornings had begun with saying the Mass, afternoon went to the parish commissions, and his evenings, as a rule, served for the sick and the poor. Before he was halfway down the lakeside, Gore saw Libya Minor and two girls on the central pontoon. From this distance, it was hard to say for sure, but he believed that they were Mirva and Marta, staring into the water with their backs to Libya. When a faint breeze blew from the lake, the dog barked joyfully, darted away and hopped onto the boat first. At this hour, the village just woke up. In the streets, if only the weird chaotic space between houses could have might be termed as 'the streets', a flock of children run around, the goats grazed dimly and the old woman basked in the sun. It looked like all the men had gone away somewhere. Gore made his way along the gangway, holding on to the wire threaded through the welded metal planks. Libya Minor waited on him, putting a hand to her forehead. She was beautiful in her gray hooded cloak, in the dancing rays on the water, and at this moment, Gore looked at her as if through the eyes of a young maybe, through the eyes of Adam, the same way he had used to look at Eva before the Fall —

"Here you are!" he said, reaching her. "What are you doing here?"

Mirva or Marta, it was unclear who exactly, began to speak:

"A giant lives in this lake. The lake is so deep that even if you would have sunk here all your life, even so you wouldn't reach the bottom. That's why its waters are so black. Perhaps, it has not the bottom at all."

The girls hadn't turned to him.

"And what is there then?" Gore asked.

"A funnel," Mirva or Marta said. "A huge funnel full of blackness."

"The farther you go, the wider it becomes," said Marta or Mirva. "And the giant still would have seen everything — it's quite easy for him —"

There was a slight difference in appearance of the girls; one of them was more tense, round-shouldered and shorter than her twin sister, as if she absorbed the poor girl in the womb. According to Metsulla, the girls were going to go to University of Geneva — to study at the Department of General Biology — the same place where Schwartz and Leibniz had been studying at their time; for obvious reasons, in the archduchy, the path to higher education has been closed for the grindylows.

"The giant is so big," the girls went on with the story, "that even the highest mountains are cakewalk for him."

Libya Minor gave Gore an eloquent glance, took out a cigarette and lit it nervously. By now, in their imagination, the girls, probably, would have fallen and fallen down into the funnel — hand in hand, the darkness round them —and, just like the giant, they had a special vision to see everything-they-wanted. After all, Gore thought in passing, it would be easy to love this darkness.

"One day the giant will climb up to the surface, seat all of the grindylows onto his shoulders and take them away to some place, where everyone is happy!"

At last Mirva and Marta turned, looking fixedly at Gore.

"Would you be our giant?" they asked simultaneously. "Would you save us?"
CHAPTER 10

When the Lines intersect (1)

Osmanli was at the wheel, metsulla played with her beads. And alluyank was dozing peacefully for the last two hours. The wind broke in through the windows. After the scorching heat of the desert it was indescribable pleasure to feel the breath of coolness in the air.

"Who are these women standing by the wayside?" Gore asked, seeing the new one. "I've lost my count!"

"Huh?"

Metsulla lost herself in a dream; the answer was late.

"By the wayside," Gore emphasized, pointing out.

"They're trading amulets," Metsulla shrugged. "A silly superstition of the locals."

"In what sense?"

"You can't buy everything you see on the counter. They can give you a gift, something else you wouldn't like to pay, maybe. Because it is believed that, if illness came to your home and, in spite of all your efforts, it doesn't want to leave, you should give some amulet to a stranger, and then you could become cured."

"Are they all getting sick? These women?"

"Only mothers may stand along the road. They plait the hair of their sick children into the amulets."

"Hmm!" Gore startled. "Sounds mad!"

He turned away from Metsulla, wondering if the things like that had been the main reason why she had left the reservation many years ago. All these spirits of the earth never help or save you from disease. Call upon them as much as you like, they do no good.

Osmanli turned towards Gore, saying something.

"Huh?" asked Gore.

"There is no road to drive on."

"And what about our equipment?"

"We'll carry what we can to the lakeside just now, and the rest — by the detour, tomorrow."

Alluyank twitched in his sleep, then cried out and woke up. At the same moment, a sign for a toll came into view. Their car stopped before the barrier. Behind of them, the expedition' cars killed the engines too.

"Arrived!" Metsulla said.

Osmanli leaped from the car and began to lead the unloading vigorously. Gore followed the minnows lugging down the meter-size jug-container. The brushwood layer rebounded underfoot. Gore picked up a twig and walked faster, crushing the heads and stalks of the yellow flowers on his path. Soon he saw the silhouettes of the Hittites houses as the trees parted, opening the sky above the lake scattered with patches of the fluffy clouds.

"This morning, all of the fisherman sailed away to the other side, so until their return, the lake crossing is out of the question!"

An old gray-haired Hittite man spoke to Gore, but looked behind him at a crowd of people arriving in the hamlet.

"That was your order to work without rest, Mr. Pulvill, from dawn to dusk! So our men are striving to complete the job for you, on time. They will work through the night if they must."

Gore looked at him blankly

"Why are you staring at me?" the Hittite asked. "Is there a ghost?"

"I do not know — maybe — you look like..." Gore muttered and looked away.

"Metsulla!" The man cried.

The Hittite passed around Gore, took Metsulla by her shoulders, and held her as if she were some precious gem, which he had been trusted to hold in his hands for a only a moment. His eyes began to water and he hugged Metsulla. Though, he did not get a warm reception in turn, it was quite touching. Maybe, Gore thought, it is the custom here, among Hittites people, and the old folk respect it better than the youth.

"Hello, daughter!" the old man said simply.

"Hello, Arzawa!"

The green waters of the lake were lapping lazily among the shore; the flickering reflection of the red lanterns resembled a line of inverted poppies. Gore stood silently in awe.

"Daughter?" he asked. "You never said that Arzawa is your father."

"Did you ever ask?"

"Family matters," Arzawa said, moving away from Metsulla. "All right, I'm glad to see you. My house is always open to you. Mr. Pulvill, take my advice and stay overnight with us here — you and your people, I mean — as you know, there is no place to accommodate you on the other side of the lake. Anyhow, it was you who told us not to settle near MDK's area — and we acted accordingly."

Osmanli approached them. Gore nodded to him:

"We'll leave tomorrow morning."

"Excellent!" Arzawa was very happy to hear his words. "The food is good here. Can you see the marquee? There's our chow wagon. Let us go there and have dinner."

He pointed to the tent illuminated by the bonfire within. Metsulla and Osmanli went to it immediately.

"I'm pretty hungry," Osmanli said. "And it would be nice to sleep in bed instead of miserable life in sleeping bag!"

Metsulla kept silence sullenly.

"Do you have any questions for me?" Arzawa said to Gore, who lingered a little. "About the project's progress, maybe?"

Gore poked into a pine cone with his twig, turned it over and rolled back and forth. Arzawa waited tensely.

"Is there something bothering you right now?" he asked at last.

Gore puckered:

"The earth tremors lately?"

Arzawa replied smoothly:

"As you just had predicted, it happened here."

"Give me more details."

The wrinkles around the old man' eyes hardened instantly, as if the cracks on the withered tree.

"It becomes more frequent, so last week we had six aftershocks here. People didn't feel them, but the instruments had recorded."

Gore shook his head.

"MDK's presence is getting more foreboding."

Artzawa nodded.

"It looks like you are right."

They were silent for a moment. At sunset the night-flies were fluttering around above the moorage. The main thing was said.

In the tent there were the logs round the campfire. The guests had been offered a roasted sweet potato and a bowl of salad named 'a gardener's joy'. Osmanli left them for a few minutes and brought several hefty pears. He passed them through a grater ruthlessly, mixed with honey, lemon juice and spices. He soused the sweet potato with this blend and handed out to everyone on the team. The fire was crackling gently. Gore watched the dancing reflections on the walls of the tent. Metsulla froze as a stone; even her eye lashes were frozen.

"Just what the doctor ordered," Osmanli said, adding the juicy chunks of bell pepper into the bowl.

Metsulla began to eat without looking at her plate. They passed around a gourd, as it turned out, filled with young wine.

"What a delicious dish!" Alluyank admired.

He glanced at Metsulla stealthily, trying to catch Arzawa's eye. He left the reservation when he had been just a kid, and at the moment he was completely flooded by the memories of his childhood. They opened and circled a new bottle of wine.

"Happy days!" Metsulla said.

"Happy days!" Gore said.

When he finally lay to rest, Gore heard the noise of approaching motorboats from the lake side. It soothed him. The whirlwind of dreams carried him away into some amazing fairyland, where he would like to stay forever, but the morning cleaned out his head instantly, leaving him only a hazy blurry feeling all around—

The camp had got up with the lark. The other side of the lake varied little from the one where they had spent the night.

These two camping site were almost identical except for one small detail. The minnows sported the gray-dappled uniforms of the League of Nations, the armored troop carriers had the emblem of legionnaires and the LN's flag waved on a silver flagpole by the minnows' headquarters.

The camouflage was complete and perfect in its details.

In the headquarter tent, Gore and Osmanli changed into their enemy uniforms. Measure of them had been taken a long time ago; the LN's uniforms had been aged by washing and suited them perfectly.

"What's with the dispatch?" Gore asked. "Reports of agents in the metropolis?"

Osmanli ran his fingers down along his service jacket fast, checking every button.

"We are above suspicion," he said. "They are waiting eagerly for us."

Gore nodded. It took them almost ten years and heaps of grafts to embed their people in the military unit servicing MDK, but the result was worth any efforts.

"Are you afraid?" he asked Osmanli.

Osmanli grinned and pushed the last collar button into a tight loop.

"With a shield, or on a shield!" he said. "Besides, we always knew this was a one way ticket, right?"

He came out of the tent and stepped aside, letting Alluyank pass in, who seemed shaken as that last phrase and didn't put him in good spirits. He approached the table with a map and ran his forefinger along the markings.

"I have taken a walk around the camp," he said. "They are well armed, I say — machine guns, gasses and even anti-aircraft guns!"

"This is as it should be," Gore said. "Who knows what we can meet in the anomalous zone? We know very little about a central MDK's area, just the second level of sensitivity within."

"Listen, I have a girlfriend and she is—" Alluyank started with a breaking voice. "She is pregnant, and by now, we don't know yet — having a boy or a girl—but—"

Gore tapped him on the shoulder.

"Alluyank, if you leave us, I understand —"

The kid' eyes widened.

"Well no, the point is not about that — we have to do this, now or never — I just want ask you to be godfather to our baby!"

Gore looked into his clear blue eyes and saw deep inside there Milana, the twin-girls and weeping Libya Minor, they walked all together to him with their raised arms—

"Do you know that I'm not a believer?" he said. "But if you want me to be godfather..."

"It's an honor for me, sir!"

Gore grinned.

"Fine! And, by the way, don't mind Osmanli' words! He is one of those for whom if the glass is half-full it is full of some real filth, and if the glass is half empty, it means that the filth has already been drunk by someone!"

The horns began to drone from the outside, calling them for an immediate rally.

"Metsulla," Alluyank started. "Metsulla are not going be with us. Her father had dissuaded her from this. Well, is there room for me in your car?"

It took them almost twelve hours to get the anomalous zone. The road ran trough the pine forest, at least partially saving them from the heat. People have not lived here for decades. The villages they encountered along the highway just kept their painful silence. Only towards evening did the minnows meet a few patrols of the League of Nations. The chary, black hills and the rugged scars of trenches, constricted tightly with skeins of barbwire were a grim sight to behold. The check at a roadblock before entering the zone procrastinated to the last degree — so, that Gore' knees ached and his stomach cramped, and, it didn't help that it wasn't clear whether or not every thing was happening as it supposed to be. What if the minnows disclosed themselves just by the mere fact that they had agreed to this torture without any sign of indignation? A damp, angry lieutenant with a pitch-black mustache checked the papers long, reading carefully to the very end. Gore really thought they would be discovered, but then the lieutenant flashed his teeth reddened from chewing betel and told them to drive on — as it turned out, this man was their agent too. Gore could tell as none of the LN's people would not have flashed his teeth dirty with bethel in the higher-ups presence. There were a direct road running down the hill and a bluish haze curling over the distant plateau. Gore's heart throbbed hard at the sight of the anomalous zone' epicenter. The quarters swept by him as blurry, faceless spots. Their armored troop carrier gained speed and broke through the last gate.

"How much time do we have?" asked Gore.

Osmanli grabbed the steering wheel harder, his eyes flashing madly.

"No matter how much we have," he said. "There's only three miles to do— keep your hand on the rail!"

He turned from the road onto a burnt black ground and the mess broke out immediately. The muddle of teeth chattering and desperate (but unsuccessful) attempts to avoid head-butting against the cab's roof increased. Gore dug his heels in the floor. Their expedition was approaching the epicenter, the heart of MDK, the very spot where most of the bombs had fallen and where the bouncy-nest-balls' uprising had happened in the First World War. Gore saw a molesaur of The League of Nations, it was much bigger than the one they had. The LN's molesaur had been armored and placed on the crawler treads; it was the towering earth-moving machine easily the size of a three story home and driven to the edge of the huge crater in a star configuration with the others.— he saw the capsules, very similar to 'fish bubbles', connected with the blistering umbilical cord, the capsules which contained the humanlike figures within — yes, the LN' scientists here were trying to make contact with MDK too, but they hadn't the dark widget that Gore had — and then, no surprise for the minnows, the expedition came under fire — as expected the enemy had planned for such an eventuality and prepared a defense— the huge wave of the white light rolled across the sky and everything reared, rattling, thundering from everywhere and nowhere. His molesaur tilted to the left side of a hill and tumbled down. There was a lapse of memory for a while, — a few minutes or a quarter, — during which Gore tried to get out of the molesaur and couldn't, and then, finally, tumbled out of the end door, like a chick out of the carton— his head was hurt, covered with blood, and he didn't remember how it had happened. He found himself on the top of a bold hill. Osmanli had been lying near to the front wheels, kissing the ground; he was dead, very hopelessly dead. Gore went around the heap of ruined armor and looked over the dark sky, the overturned cars, the gnarled, scorched black bodies — it was the end of the expedition.

All of a sudden Gore realized that a part of MDK had been hovering in midair among the low clouds as if from nowhere; was now presenting itself down out of the shroud of mist and fog —this flying island lowered its long nasty threads down toward the earth; chains of huge bubbles with the grindylows inside.

He ran towards his molesaur; he must insert the cradle. He took the cradle out and heaved it onto the black ground like a large sack of potatoes. Then he saw Alluyank lying flat on the ground. Somehow he was alive; his eyes brightened as he saw Gore —

The two of them lugged the cradle onto the LN's molesaur. There was something wrong. It was empty, unescorted and, quite possible, disabled. They had to find out something. The floor had partly collapsed. The puzzling hardware had blocked up the passage, threatening to fall down at any moment; the smell of the poured grease stung the nostrils. Gore glanced back, Alluyank followed him close. A pale face, his eyes dilated. He was like a sleepwalker (calm and unconscious), crossing directly over the precipice on a tightrope.

They climbed onto the roof and ran towards the nearest capsule.

Alluyank leaned over the rail and vomited. At the same moment a bright green tentacle poked out from under the ground and rushed to him; he barely jumped back in time. The tentacle lashed in the air like a whip reporting a deafening crack as it receded.

The alarm flashes ran throughout the MDK's body. Red, blue, red.

Standing on the molesaur's roof, Gore realized that the flying island was entirely covered with the giant dragonflies' wings. It made no sense. The damn mica-flocks above wouldn't be able to lift such huge thing as MDK, even a part of MDK, no levitation for the islands here below —

Gore and Alluyank dragged the cradle to the harpoon gun. They had to pull the nearest germ to them — it was a blue bubble glowing from the inside out. The winch started working. The spool began to move, spinning the winch drum; the bubble was approaching them with a human figure within. The bubble was wrapped in the curly tatters resembling green seaweed. The shroud of fog had cleared and they could see MDK clear in all its glory; in countless warts and round ugly knobs; far and near, there were dangling down and rotting the same rubbish greenery —entangled masses of entrances and burrows. Gore turned off the winch, killing its moaning with one jerk of his hand, and then, working in a team with Alluyank, he sent the falling bubble downwards to the cradle which was foaming a pink substance and trembling continually, eagerly stretching its sprouts for him. He tore up the package, took out a signal flare, burned the clamp tips of the cradle, pinched the cassettes with the matrix deployment program and pressed four buttons on the frame. Now was the most important part of his mission: the fusion of a human being to MDK's mind. Suddenly the island dropped about fifteen feet — there were the deep blue figures with smoothed features inside folding their hands over their breasts, —they weren't the grindylows at all, — it was something else — perhaps, MDK had been trying to make contact with the mankind too — Gore watched as all of the embryos stirred a little identically, holding up their right hands.

Gore began to explain to Alluyank for a second time what they had to do. As a matter of fact, there was nothing complicated about that. If the cord would have rejected the fusion matrix, Alluyank had to replace the same four buttons and press them as it had been already done by Gore — in reply Alluyank spouted words, promising not to fail Gore for anything in the world — Gore stripped down nude, climbed into the cradle and zipped himself up from within. Then he released saline solution out from the reservoirs, letting the thick liquid into the cradle and filling it to the brim.

The last air left him in a few moments, and he began breathing with his gills.

A bright spot flashed away.

And then all faded out.

The MDK's destruction had begun.
CHAPTER 11

When the Lines intersect (2)

It was still easy to reach the shore, even when the motorboat's engine had died. Gore thought that this could be a sign for them all. Alluyank tried the starter, got out a couple of deaf roars of the engine, raked the fishing net and took out the sculls. Metsulla took no notice of that. She kept her eyes glued to the shore, where there were the watchers, young and old, crowding along the whole moorage. It seemed she could think only about the upcoming Baptism — and in the same way of the last night, she had turned into a stone idol for the moment.

Alluyank nestled on the bench. Gore leaned over and touched his elbow.

"Do you have another pair of oars for me?"

"Huh? What?"

"What about the oars for me?" Gore modified his question. "Were a team," he smiled.

"These are the only two I have," Alluyank responded with eagerness. "And why? I can manage everything here with a smile!"

"Are you sure?"

"I have never been surer!"

Gore sat aside from him and took Libya Minor by the hand. The boat started. In front of them the wall of steep cliffs grew above slowly, higher and higher. The sun got stuck in rising. The water was glaring and rippling off the boat; against such a background its depth looked more solemn and blacker than ever

The boy moved the oars, panting loudly. At some point he even winked at Gore.

"You see!" he boasted.

"Head to the left," Metsulla warned him. "Don't run into!"

At that same second a side of the boat touched with the moorage. The tire casing softened a blow, the boat moved away from the berth, but Alluyank paddled again and moored the boat. Libya Minor whispered the Jesus Prayer and brought her pectoral cross to her lips. "Well done!" Gore praised. The boy jumped on the pier, cocked his cap up and began to wrap the rope around the bollard. Gore climbed the ladder too. There was a crowd of men, women and children before him. The mothers cuddled their children without giving them step out towards the stranger. Metsulla and Libya Minor joined to Gore.

"Make way!" Metsulla said, cutting the crowd with her bulky body. "Not so hard, people!"

Going along with her authority, the other passengers moved on. As soon as they headed for the cliffs, the crowd thinned and lagged behind them considerably.

"He lives over there!" Metsulla said, stopping short. "Can you see anything?"

He looked up for a while, looking for some building or structure, and then —

"Is that what I think it is?" Gore asked hoarsely. "When was it built and by who? Veritema?"

There was no building at all, because the rocks themselves were the one continuous building.

"Veritema began to build a temple for the Lord eight years ago, when his last wife died. Actually, I'm not sure that this is a Catholic church. Rather, it is a symbol of his newfound faith. That's how it usually is. When, together with the all what happens to him, a person wants to have some tangible confirmation of the changes in his inner life. At first, no one knew about the temple. The children noticed in first. They always notice all the things like that and bring the news right to your door."

Gore was silent in a shock. As a matter of fact, it was a first ever church in the Hittite reservation for the last two millennia, and Vatican hadn't known of it.

"You are full of surprises," Gore muttered. "You should have told me earlier."

"Well, I guess, it's not like it would change anything. Especially, bearing in mind your attitude to the grindylows, bearing in mind Holy Church's attitude to them?"

"Anyhow, you should have tried to," Gore said.

Gore peered at the church, realizing more and more new details of how large it was. It seemed there were the sculptures, the pointed arches, the columns and the narrow, tall towers with octagonal pinnacles at top — and all this formed a vertical line. The vertical line of long-run aspirations to God. It occurred to Gore that Veritema must have worked day and night to build the church. At his advanced age, of all things!

"Are you saying that he had built all of this by himself?"

"No doubt," Metsulla confirmed. "Or, if you like it, as the saying goes 'with God's help', right?"

Gore ignored her gibe.

"It's pretty far from here, isn't it?" he weighed up the distance. "I think two hours of brisk walking!"

Metsulla nodded, pursing her lips.

"Yes, it is. And we have to climb up there!"

The second half of the day had been guided by afternoon drowsiness. The house of tribal chief named Arzawa had many chambers, one of which was given to the caravanners. It was a cone-shaped room without any furniture which had been replaced by the mats and pillows.

"You're really gonna to do this to Veritema?" Libya Minor asked. "Baptize him?"

"I don't know," Gore said. "Do you remember a verse from Epistle to the Colossians: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, but Christ is all, and in all?"

They lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling.

"Now I see what you are driving at," Libya Minor said. "Well then."

He drew her to him and kissed her.

"And now I'm driving at—"he said, pressing his lips to her neck, "a man is cleaved to his wife: and they shall be one flesh, and the eternal caravan shall light up the way for them—"

"You already have cleaved to me," Libya giggled. "Twice, actually!"

"And I want more time."

"Okay, now, come here to me," she said, lifting up the blanket. "I don't mind."

Thereafter they fell asleep happy and satiated with the acute electric bliss. Time flowed through them softly, sparkling like young wine. They did not wake until it was time for dinner.

From start to finish it was all hard climbing. As the crow flies it wasn't far off from the lakeshore, but the path curved all the time, and the angle of climb was steep and higher than fifteen degrees. When the canopy of slate came into view, all of them quickened their pace involuntarily, despite their exhaustion. From under the open shed was heard the gentle murmur of a spring. There was a recessed stone bowl full of water and two wide benches.

"Is that the job of Veritema too?" Gore asked.

Metsulla nodded.

"He takes care of his flock."

"Really? So, he has a congregation?"

"Nope. But he does not lose hope."

Gore began to blink, considering her answer. Then he drank from a spring, emptied his flask and filled it with fresh water.

"All of this is very strange to me," he said. "Extremely strange to say!"

Metsulla stared at him with interest.

"You are right," she said, smirking at him, "and that kind of strangeness is everywhere you go here!"

"Yes it is," said Gore. "How long more are we have to climb up to Veritema's dwelling?"

"We passed the half way mark. Don't you want a snack?" She unfolded the food in the basket. A humble peasant meal lay in his stomach lustily; its weight was felt like a pleasant load. The toasted sheets of bread filled with cheese, dill and olives aroused acclamation and were eaten instantly coupled with tomatoes.

"Well, well, here Veritema' disciples are," Metsulla said, when two young men arrived and approached them. "So, it looks like I was wrong about the flock!"

The disciples wore rags and sandals, and the both of them carried a solid staff.

"We have noticed you coming and went out to meet you", one of the youths said. "Veritema Togkuos awaits your arrival."

The both had black, olive-like, burning eyes and hard pitch-black curls.

"Are you Sivata, a son of a blacksmith?" Metsulla asked.

"Yes, I am."

"And you are Estan, a son of a cooper?"

"I am." They remembered suddenly and said almost in chorus: "We hail you, Metsulla, a daughter of Arzawa!"

Metsulla nodded.

"My greetings to you, Estan and Sivata!"

They turned back to Gore.

"And you are those caravanners?" Sivata asked.

"Yes, we are those caravanners," Gore said; he was struck by the way they phrased it, "those"; as if Veritema could know exactly who would have been sent to him by Holy Church.

"Horace Pulvill," he introduced himself. "And this is Libya Minor, my eternal caravan!"

The followers made a low bow.

About an hour later the guests came to the area in front of the temple. It was more a gothic cathedral; its cross had been set much higher, that from below, it looked as small as a match head.

He hadn't been allowed to pray yet; in spite of the events preceding of his appearance here, it started with Sivata' and Esta' bowing to the ground, and only thereafter they led Gore through the corridor in the soft light of the lampions. Libya Minor and Metsulla remained at the entrance.

"Go on without us!" Sivata said, when the three of them approached the monastic cells. "You'll see where Veritema is."

He took off a lamp from the wall, handed it to Gore and stepped aside.

Gore grabbed his bag tighter. Again he had to go on a journey into the unknown.

"Are you sure you want me to go alone?" he asked.

The guy shook his head.

"From the very beginning Veritema insisted to be baptized, you know— through face to face—"

Gore turned silently and walked down the corridor. There was a large cell. It was almost spherical, with stone ledges of the cliff along the wall: a shelf for household items, a shelf for rest and sleep, a shelf for manuscripts and one for the lamps, of which there were many. In the center, in a recess, there towered above the two-meter scar of a cradle. It was like a narrow coffin covered with blue- green moss. The pale lights ran over it as though the restless mercury drops.

The cell' walls were rough and hilly, and there was no mistaking about that characteristic pattern.

"I am happy to welcome you!" Gore heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness. "Just hold on a bit, me coming to you! It is hard to get up recently, and, frankly, it is even difficult to lie now around my age — ha-ha! — I see you've paid attention to the walls here, haven't you?"

After these words Gore's last doubts dispelled and he put his ritual bag on the stone floor.

"How did it get here?" he asked. "Did you brick it somehow?"

"After the bouncy-nest-ball's fell here, I had bricked the cleft above us. I guess the poor creature could not get out — or something like that — but, one way or another; it had fused with the cradle. It's very odd, isn't it? A cradle and a bouncy-nest-ball being in alliance — and yet, as far as I know, there was no fighting in the reservation during WWI. Any cradle in the world is a root of MDK, a kind of holy land, as the roots stretch from Vatican itself! When I started to build the temple, I couldn't even imagine that I would have stumbled with such things here — besides, bouncy-nest-balls emit dangerous fumes and I had to brick up the poor creature, and then I had realized that a cradle inside of a bouncy-nest-ball is a sign for me."

Veritema slid out of the darkness. The cradle sobbed loudly.

"Horace Pulvill, a caravanner of Holy Church," Gore said, feeling utterly stupid. "For performing the ritual of christening you would have fasted during a few days. That is indispensable condition for Confession and Holy Communion — when last did you fast and pray?"

His voice faltered when the old grindylow put his hands on his shoulders. Veritema' palms were large, narrow and long. He had smooth skin on his cheeks and just a little of wrinkles around; the protruding ribs and the semicircles of gills. Did Veritema try ever to cure himself in the Schwartz' aquariums? And how did he come to God? Indeed, in faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.

Gore heard as, behind him, the dragonflies approached the cell clawing on stone. For now, there were only few of them, one or two. They did not fly up, but just moved their wings—

Veritema said: "I had built this temple and I spent a thousand and one nights by reading spiritual books, and for many years I live alone. So, how do you think, can it be considered as a fasting?"

Gore got a cramp in his neck. He removed Veritema' hands from his shoulders.

"Are you ready to repent of your sins?"

"Yes."

"Then, let us sit down."

They sat down. Gore began to explain the old Hittite man how confession works, and what kind of answers should Veritema give — it did not take long—

"It was harder than I thought it would be," Veritema said when it was over. His hands were trembling.

"Yes, it isn't easy" Gore said. "But if you can give an account of your life before God in this world, you will not afraid to give an account on Last Judgment."

"What ... what now? How will it be?"

Gore stripped to the waist. His was almost faint, his ears were ringing. It was hard to hear of Veritema, because the dragonflies flew up and flew up, and they hid from view an imagined sky, and their crackling was like the roar of turbo machinery.

"I'll take you—" Gore said, "—in ancient days!"

Tears were rolling down Veritema cheeks.

"I tried to do the rite myself," he whispered, "and failed to do it!"

"Because, you couldn't. It inherits from a caravanner to a caravanner through centuries. Not everyone is able to fulfill the rite of baptism. The failed people become ordinary professors of theology or leave Holy Church. Maybe, you will not succeed too. It is such a right, a connection of times, not everyone can do it!"

"Oh! I should have known!"

"The Apostles received gifts of the Holy Spirit from Our Savior, and these gifts were passing through two millennia. Our Lord showed himself to his disciples, after he was risen from the dead, and they did not know him, because he was trans-figured. And later they were trans-figured too, and they were passing gifts of the Holy Spirit from them to their best disciples by MDK—"

"Oh, my God!"

"Let us go into the cradle and let Christ come alive in us!"

He took his hand and helped to go down into the funnel. There was a squelch under his feet, MDK' juices oozed out through the moss.

"The church is the bride of Christ," Gore pronounced the first words of the ritual. "A servant of God, Veritema Togkuos, I baptize you in the name of the Father—"

Gore parted the moss, clearing space for Veritema. They lay down onto the glowing white sponge. Gore took him by his hand. And almost immediately the pseudopods raised their heads and drove their stings into his spine, connecting to his nervous system, penetrating into his neck, into the depth of his brain, tickling madly within his intervertebral discs.

(there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither Human nor Grindylow)

(but Christ is all)

"They were transfigured! They knew something that stood above the Death," the old man whispered feverishly. "But, look, almost all of the apostles were killed — were martyred — Luke was hanged, Peter and Philip were crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross, Saul was beheaded, Matthew, Stephen, Barnabas were stoned, Thomas was shot to death with arrows by the Brahmans in India — the priests pushed James off the roof of the temple and then struck him on the head with a fuller's club — and if that's what happened to best of the best, to the Twelve Apostles which had received gifts of the Holy Spirit, then what can be said about the rest? So, not for the sake of satiety people have come to God, but for the sake of eternal craving! For the sake of Transfiguration and Deification. Yes, they have to! Otherwise, if there is no God, if there is only darkness after death: what a monstrous travesty is the human race, indeed! The simple fact of life itself and our births, the whole lot is pointless! Monstrous! All of us, both living and dead, is nothing more than a cemetery of orphans. And God left us, God which does not exist! How to live with it, and what is the most important thing, how to live with honor and without losing heart?"

"Shut up!" Gore demanded. "Do you feel anything? You should already feel something."

And here they were covered with the blow. Their bodies arched. Only a breathless wheeze.

I will be yours giant, Gore thought, I can!

The white flash

(it was over, their two souls, as if a bit of dandelion fluff, were thrown into the sky, where the dragonflies were flying, millions of the dragonflies, and suddenly they began to fall and crumble with the rainbow stardust, and this dust fell underfoot, and the cross fell upon Gore' shoulders — he stumbled, thinking he could endure blows of the whip, but he cried out, and then the pain blinded him, and he had to stand up — oh, Lord, don't leave me!)

The white flash.

(And I had approached him and put my fingers into his wounds, and there was a lot of light, and everything around was the light)

(blessed are those who have not seen and have believed)

(and I'll grant you the eternal caravan, and it will light up the darkness until the end of darkness, and I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands)

Before Gore's eyes flashed his mother's face, and his father's face, and he saw the girl he felt in love in the first form, and that girl at the summer camp for kids, and that girl at his school, and when he went to his grandmother for the summer vacations, and a neighbor on the floor above, and a professor which headed the department, and all the books he had been read in his life, and all the amazing music, and a few real friends he had, and all the friends of his youth, and Libya Minor, and Mirva, and Marta, and the all of whom he loved and treasured.

The MDK's root trembled beneath him. Gore felt it was a rebirth.

From the depths of a blooming garden a boy in a white shirt came out and took Gore 's hand trustingly — and just a bit later, Gore realized that was Veritema himself.

And the Lord said: Let there be light!

And at once there was light.
EPILOGUE

A Cross Point, Wherever and Whenever It Could Be

An airship of the league of nations hovered in the sky. On the eve of the election of Pope, the archduchy had become a mass of peacekeeping forces.

"Mr. Pulvill! Mr. Pulvill!"

The boy named Rodney called him desperately. He ran up to Pulvill's car. During those few seconds he was trying to recover his calm and breath, before he could say something.

"What about training session?" he asked.

The boy waved his racket, showing a service with a motion of his hand.

"First of all, let us say 'hello' to each other", Gore said, putting down the driver's side glass. "And secondly, as you know, I am not a big fan of tennis! Maybe, next time? Anyhow I have seen how good you were at the game this morning!"

"Thanks!" Rodney beamed with joy. "Would you like to have breakfast with us?"

Gore looked at the second-floor window of his cottage. There was the Encyclopedia of the ancient Hittites and the draft of his new article waiting to be finished. Before lunch time always was Gore's favorite occasion for writing.

"What about my article?" Gore said. "I was going to finish it today".

"Oh please! Save me!"

The boy looked back at the tennis court, where in the sunshine a girl stood, hollowing her left palm against her forehead.

"Do you know who she is?" Rodney asked in a whisper. "She is my cousin! She threatens to fill up my bed with tree-toads, when I'll be sleeping —if I don't convince you to have a breakfast with us!"

"Well that's a blackmail if I've ever heard one," Gore grinned. "I am not sure, but — tree-toads? Here? Near Vatican? I've been never heard that before!"

Rodney bent to him closely.

"That's because—" Rodney said. "Things are not always as they seem".

"Why?"

"That's because, Mr. Pulvill, that you are not exactly the same person which you think you are."

"What do you mean?" Gore asked.

He was suddenly interested.

"Oh, my cousin has the whole theory about it! If you accept our invitation, she will share it with you gladly!"

"Well, let me think about that — a while —"

Rodney cupped his hands and crouched slightly. Gore laughed and got out of the car. The boy had a born talent for acting; his mime was perfect.

"All right, you win! Libya Minor will return by next week, and I'm free for morning parties and a tale of extravagant theories!"

Rodney showed him how to serve on a tennis court and Gore even had a few lucky shots. Thereafter, they started having breakfast followed by a thoughtful conversation. A spacious first-floor living room was flooded to the brim with fresh colors of summer, the young sun shone on the glasses and china. Towards the end, they were served with a magnificent green tea, and not less a magical cake: a chocolate airy meringue on a silver tray. He didn't remember when he felt so good last time. All of a sudden he felt a prickle of "déjà vu", as if he had been sitting here with these people often before, but such "stabs" always happened to him in August, now and then six or seven times a day, so he was used to it.

"How interesting," he said, narrowing his eyes, as he pulled a napkin, "And all this in terms of quantum mechanics?"

"Yes."

"I love all sorts of theories," Gore admitted. "Unfortunately, they often lag behind the truth for many parsecs; though, sometimes they fall into the goal. And that is how quantum superposition does: a quantum might be found anywhere in space with equal probability, and you never know where it is now, so, if you need to know a particle's position — you have to put it under observation!"

The girl, whose name was Shandra, flushed with pleasure and stared into her cup of tea. She was delighted that the professor of theology finally sat at her living room and he was so brisk discussing her theory.

"Take for instance, your diagram here — I'm talking about verification: parallel worlds, attempts to make contact between them and so on — all right! Let it be and forget it! We can imagine all of this mess around quantization in a different way. For example, what if two men — let us suppose the both of them are the same person living in different worlds (Horace Pulvill #1 and Horace Pulvill #2), under different circumstances and, nevertheless and against all the odds, meeting the same people over in over again during their lives? so, the both of them do two completely different things simultaneously — it should be something great, which is significant for each of the worlds — I think that millions of people should have been involved in these significant things — otherwise, it wouldn't have worked, right? Remember, Horace Pulvill #1 and Horace Pulvill #2?"

"Right!" Shandra said.

"And what happens then?"

Gore pointed to a napkin.

"Oh, it is most interesting thong to guess the answer!" Shandra exclaimed. "I believe that," she fixed her eyes on the intersection of two ink lines on the napkin, "these two worlds would have to collapse and disappear, and there would be born a New World Number of Three? Yes!" she clapped her hands joyfully. "Is that right?!"

"What a regrettable situation!" Gore smiled. "If I was Gore #1 and Gore#2, then in this third world, as Gore #3, I wouldn't have met all of my loved ones or even have been aware their existence! However, maybe, and I would have met you, folks, but only the prettiest and smartest of you!"

He winked at Shandra and she blushed again.

"Besides," Gore continued, "in this manner anybody can imagine himself a real hero. He says he is a waste of space in our world, he has done nothing great yet, but who knows, maybe, in the other worlds, he is a greatest hero ever born — but, as one philosopher said, Life is effort through time!"

After Gore backed home, he immediately went upstairs to his study. He sat down in his favorite chair and thought with some disappointment about those things he didn't say to them. Is there really an infinite branching of alternate worlds exist? What if a quantum event might fork the universe? And what if it happens all the time over and over, multiplying copies of the primary universe and infinite copies of Gore. It is difficult to conceive how much the branches there already are and will in the future be. And each of them has its own Gore and roughly another 7 billion people all with intersecting lives. How a personality can maintain its mental integrity? Every branch is a fate of someone, the whole life with all its hardships, expectations and memory. And these two Gores, of which he had been talking with Shandra and Rodney, are nothing but a speck in the infinite ocean of branching worlds. The number of the oceans is innumerable! It didn't matter. He was in good, soft and pleasing spirits for no reason. As if he really was a hero in other worlds.

The bright sunny day looked in through the open window. In last the greetings from the summer, and a butterfly circled, circled, and could not fly away.

February — August, 2o13

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact the author at

Email: wagner24@yandex.ru

COPYRIGHT

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the

author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CEMETERY OF ORPHANS

Copyright © 2015 by Yaroslav Kostyuk

All rights reserved

